KUALA LUMPUR: The global Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey by Airports Council International (ACI) has named KL International Airport (KLIA) and Langkawi International Airport (LIA) as among the world's best airports in their respective categories for 2021.
Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd said KLIA and LIA achieved a perfect score of 5.00 in the airport categories serving over 40 million passengers per annum (mppa) and 2.0-5.0 mppa respectively.
ASQ benchmarks the world's best airports in terms of overall passenger satisfaction for terminal safety, facilities, services, and cleanliness.
MAHB said the recent industry accolade by a global body would give added impetus to it to continue maintaining high service standards especially in view of the expected increase in passenger movements after Malaysia borders reopen on April 1.
In February 2022, the airport operator recorded a total of 4.66 million passenger movements.
Of this, 2.54 million passenger movements or 55 per cent were contributed by its local network of airports and 2.12 million or 45 per cent were from its Turkish asset, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG).
For Malaysia, domestic passenger traffic movements stand at 2.27 million and international at 0.28 million while ISG registered 1.09 million domestic and 1.03 million international.
MAHB chief execuitive officer Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood said the company was proud that two Malaysian airports wre recognised for this prestigious award.
"Although we had achieved a high score in 2020, we were still 0.02 points shy of a perfect score.
"In 2021, the team had put in tremendous effort to close this gap because as an airport operator, we cannot compromise on operational efficiency and service standards - more so as we are expecting an influx of international passengers into country from next month onwards," he said.
MAHB said on top of border reopening, implementation of the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) programme continued apace.
New VTL programmes include Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur-Pattaya, and Kuala Lumpur-Cambodia that have commenced on March 15, as well as Penang-Singapore on March 16.