A corporate leader with diverse experience, he is harnessing the latest technological advances to spur Malaysia Airports to greater heights as a smart aviation regional hub.
This month, Dato’ Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh brims with joy over the airport operator’s perfect score and quick wins in Airports Council International’s (ACI) latest global Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey. Other initiatives recently rolled out at its 23-year-old flagship KL International Airport (KLIA) offers not only greater convenience to its passengers but also heightened airport security, which are all part of its Airports 4.0 digitalisation plan.
I am overjoyed that KLIA scored full marks of 5.0 to gain the top spot in ACI’s latest global ASQ survey for the over 40 million passengers per annum category in the last quarter of 2020. With our implementation of new travel protocols and newly refurbished washrooms that made our passengers feel safe and secure, we also won hands down for our exceptional customer experience in terms of courtesy and helpfulness.
All this was further augmented by us passing for the third quarter of last year all elements in the Quality of Service framework which measures passenger satisfaction and service performance in order to ensure consistent passenger comfort and improved travelling experience at KLIA.
Meanwhile, the quick response codes feedback we placed at each cubicle of KLIA’s toilets have now been extended to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, Kota Kinabalu International Airport and Langkawi International Airport. All our guests need to do is just send us their feedback via their smartphones.
We recently implemented our Front Liner Behavioural Assessment digital platform at KLIA to inculcate elements of how to be a caring host to our guests among our more than 2,000 frontliners. This platform, also part of our Airports 4.0 journey to improve service levels, has led to at least 20% improvement in each individual front liner’s performance rating score as we provide bite-size e-learning skills and real-time notifications such as safe travelling tips for them to disseminate to our guests.
Our 23-year-old KLIA also saw the roll-out of a new passenger reconciliation system (PRS) in our collaboration with Malaysia Airlines to enhance safety and speed up the security screening process. So far, we have installed 10 and 12 PRS units at Terminals 1 and 2 respectively, promising enhanced customer experience by minimising queues and facilitating in safe physical distancing travelling under the new norms.
With this automated security screening system, we can scan and match information on the passenger’s travel documents to Malaysia Airlines’ passenger database in real time. The use of double layer encrypted data will enable us to efficiently filter out fraudulent travel documents. Additionally, baggage belonging to no-show passengers can be immediately identified and offloaded from the aircraft, thus reinforcing security and improving the turnaround time.
The PRS will be key to an elevated e-boarding experience, allowing us to implement an ‘open gate’ concept at selected boarding gates, which will provide more space for passengers to sit and wait comfortably prior to boarding their flight. In our continuing efforts to offer dynamic solutions and maintain momentum as one of the world’s top airports, we hope more airlines will come onboard to experience the PRS when air travel picks up again.
Looking forward to the recovery of our national aviation industry in the coming months, I welcome the government’s recent announcements on reciprocal green lane
or travel corridor arrangement between Malaysia and Indonesia, which are expected to have a positive impact on the air traffic movements between the two countries.