KL International Airport (KLIA) is ranked as top 10 airports in the latest global airport survey, Airport Service Quality (ASQ) which benchmarks the world's best airports.
ASQ is a programme by the Airports Council International that sets service standards, protocols and operational guidelines for airports worldwide.
Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said despite challenging times, KLIA had risen to the ninth ranking for the first half of 2020 from 17th in 2019 among airports of similar capacity.
MAHB said KLIA had achieved an improved overall score of 4.94 out of 5.00 from 4.69 previously.
Among the highlights of its performance were scoring a perfect 5.00 for the overall satisfaction by both business and leisure passengers, 4.99 for cleanliness of airport terminal and 4.97 for the availability of washrooms.
MAHB group chief executive office Datuk Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh said the huge improvements in both ranking and score were made possible through the steadfast commitment and continuous efforts by the KLIA team to elevate service level for a safe and joyful airport experience.
"Despite challenges arising from new normal requirements in airport operations, the whole airport community displayed a strong spirit of collaboration and came together as one to elevate KLIA's service performance in the eyes of the world.
"As part of the company's high-performance culture, we have also formed an operational excellence (OE) division to specifically look at the pain-points of the passenger journey in the new normal and improve on them swiftly.
MAHB said the OE team at KLIA was looking at both quick-wins and long-term solutions in the passenger flow to avoid bottlenecks at various terminal checkpoints.
It said due to new procedures and standard operating procedures (SOPs), processing time at various checkpoints especially during peak periods had increased.
So far, the team has identified more than 60 improvement ideas at KLIA with 50 of them immediately implemented as quick-win solutions.
These improvement ideas were identified by conducting "empathy walks" i.e. shadowing actual passengers during their journey through the airport.
SOURCE: NST/11 OCT 2020
