Stranded and Left in the Lurch

GEORGE TOWN: About 80 passengers on a Malaysia Airlines flight who were stranded here on Thursday had to spend the night in the airport because there were no Immigration officials around.

The incident happened when MAS flight MH 791 from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur was diverted to the Penang International Airport in Bayan Lepas here due to bad weather.

The plane landed about 11.45pm and passengers were told they would be flown into Kuala Lumpur on a later flight.

When another MAS plane arrived about 12.45am, the flight did not take place due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

The passengers had to sleep at the airport terminal as there were no immigration officers to handle procedures enabling the passengers to leave the terminal.

The passengers were only flown to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 7.15am yesterday.

State Immigration Department deputy director Emi Rosdiana Rosli said that if MAS had informed them of the delay, they would have put several officers on stand-by.

She explained that their officers only worked until 11pm daily, unless they were asked to extend their working hours.

“Had MAS informed us, we would certainly have been around and the passengers would not have been left stranded at the airport terminal,” she said.

MAS senior general manager (operations control) Tajuden Abu Bakar extended the airlines’ apology to all the passengers. He explained that the diverted flight was due to adverse weather conditions around KLIA at that time.

“By the time the aircraft was parked and received clearance to fly to KLIA, the crew had exceeded their flying time limit and under regulations, they were required to step down,” he added.

Tajuden also said that since the next flight to accommodate all the 80 passengers to KLIA was only at 7.15am the following morning, MAS wanted to check the passengers into a hotel.

“Unfortunately, the passengers were not able to leave the airport as the usual Immigration clearance facilities were no longer available.”

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