Loke: Govt won't get involved if airlines seek compensation over KLIA systems failure

SEREMBAN: The government will not get involved if airlines go ahead with plans to seek compensation from Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB), due to four days of disruptions and delays at the KL International Airport that apparently caused them to lose tens of millions of ringgit.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said the matter was strictly between the airlines and the MAHB management.

"On our part, we have set up a six-man committee chaired by the ministry's secretary-general to investigate what really happened.

"We have one month to report this to the Cabinet," he told reporters on Tuesday (Aug 27), after launching a Commuting Safety Support Programme at Wisma TNB here.

The Star today quoted one airline CEO, who declined to be named, as saying that the computer glitch caused his company to lose more than RM6mil.

Another airline apparently saw losses of more than RM10mil.

A systems failure caused major flight delays over the past few days, with MAHB having to resort to manual means to get passengers on their flights.

Flights were delayed for long periods of time, causing the airlines to incur costs to accommodate the wide-spread delays.

Loke said the team probing the incident would comprise senior officials from the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia, Malaysian Aviation Commission and the National Cybersecurity Agency.

When questioned over reports that MAHB has not ruled out the possibility of malicious intent behind the network failure, Loke said it was too early to tell.

"Let the committee probe this. We can't draw any conclusions at this stage," he said, adding that the members of the committee may be increased if there was a necessity.