KUALA LUMPUR: The long lines at the Immigration counters at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on Saturday were due to a large number of aircraft arrivals.
Immigration Department director-general Datuk Seri Khairul Dzaimee Daud said 147 flights arrived at KLIA's Terminal 1 that day, including 67 between 3pm and 11pm.
He said there were flights at intervals of between five and 10 minutes, with the total number of people arriving being 14,515, while there were 17,872 people flying out of the airport.
"The school holiday season also led to an increase in the number of passengers, as well as Malaysians performing the umrah," he said.
Khairul Dzaimee was responding to an article in the New Straits Times quoting foreign travellers entering Malaysia who said they had to wait between an hour and three hours to get past the Immigration counters due to the long lines.
Malaysian netizens had also hit out at the Immigration services at KLIA, chiming in to record their own horror experiences.
Khairul Dzaimee said, on Saturday, the department had opened up all available counters to deal with the influx of passengers and increase in flights.
The department's Quick Respose Team was also deployed to assist counter officers, he added.
He said the department had introduced several comprehensive measures to overcome crowd congestion and long queues at Immigration counters.
Among these was the move to open up the use of autogates for visitors from 10 more countries — Australia, Brunei, Germany, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom.
"We introduced a pilot test project for this autogate access to provide faster Immigration clearance for visitors from the 10 countries.
"This pilot projects was implemented on Feb 17 and it is set to be officially launched by the Home Minister (Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail) tomorrow at Terminal 1," said Khairul Dzaimee.
He said the department fully understood that KLIA was the country's main gateway.
"Various initiatives have been implemented to ensure a smooth flow at KLIA. However, it is important that we are thorough with our checks and follow procedures to avoid national security threats," he said.