Airports returning to normal

Unexpected setback: It was still slow processing at check-in counters at KLIA Terminal 2, leading to congestion at the departure terminal where outbound passengers made a beeline to check in and catch their flights. — ART CHEN/The Star

Situation under control despite congestion, slower processing at check-in counters

SEPANG: Things returned to normal at KLIA Terminal 1 yesterday, but it was still slow processing at check-in counters at KLIA Terminal 2 in the wake of the CrowdStrike global IT glitch.

This saw slowed-down operations for travellers on budget airlines at Terminal 2, leading to congestion at the departure terminal where outbound passengers made a beeline to check in and catch their flights.

When contacted, a Malaysia Airlines spokesman said the carrier’s operations were back to normal.

At Terminal 2, an AirAsia ground worker who declined to be named said that while it was quite chaotic on Friday, the situation was under control yesterday despite passenger congestion and slower processing at check-in counters.

The staff member said that to manage the unexpected setback more efficiently and to serve affected passengers, AirAsia had recalled a large number of its off-duty staff to work in efforts to restore its technical systems.

According to the employee, at least 50 flights were affected by the outage.

Student Angelica Tijan, 25, who was to catch a flight back to Sarawak at 5pm yesterday, said her flight was postponed to 10pm.

“I came to the airport at 1pm. I just completed my studies and am returning home but never expected this. It’s very frustrating,” she said.

An Indian national who only wanted to be known as Arpan said he was supposed to travel to Bali on Friday with his wife and daughter for a holiday.

However, after a six-hour delay, he gave up and decided to catch the flight the next day.

“After waiting from 10am, we managed to get a flight to Bali at 8pm. It was quite a tiring wait, but we are glad that we managed to get a flight,” he said.

An India-bound passenger said he was relieved that he was unaffected by the outage as his flight was on schedule.

“This glitch is unfortunate, but no one can be blamed. At least the airline staff are doing their best to restore their systems and get everyone on their flights,” he said.

A police officer on duty at Terminal 2 said there were no untoward incidents at the terminal.

In a statement yesterday, AirAsia said it would continue with its operations to connect guests to their destinations and is working around the clock to recover its departure control systems (DCS).

“AirAsia guests are strongly encouraged to arrive early at the airport to accommodate possible delays in performing manual check-in at the counters and clearing all travelling formalities,” the airline said.

AirAsia said it has also beefed up its operations to manage the surge of weekend travellers at the airport by deploying more than 300 ground staff members and security personnel to help mitigate the situation and ensure the safety and comfort of its passengers.

It advised its passengers to monitor the status of their flights by checking their email registered with the airline and mobile phones for flight updates or at airasia.com/flightstatus.

Meanwhile, according to Bernama, AirAsia had resumed its online check-in operations and its deputy group chief executive officer (airline operations) Datuk Captain Chester Voo said the low-cost carrier would continue to monitor the situation.

The global tech outage occurred on Friday after cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike sent out a defective update to users.

The firm said a fix had been deployed for a bug that caused the outage that saw airports, banks and media across the world affected.

In SHAH ALAM, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof said the outage had not affected government agencies’ operations, except for the aviation sector, so far.

However, proactive measures are being taken to address the issue.

He was speaking to reporters after launching the JuiceUP Electric Vehicle (EV) open payment solution system.