Blackout at KKIA [NSTTV]

 By Olivia Miwil - February 24, 2022 @ 9:28am

Passengers had to move around in the dark as the Kota Kinabalu International Airport experienced a power outage last night. - Pic courtesy of Cynthia Majaham

KOTA KINABALU: Passengers and staff had to fumble around in the dark as the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) experienced a 10-hour power outage.

Cynthia Majaham who arrived here from Kuala Lumpur at about 9pm yesterday said it was the first time she entered an airport without power.

"I boarded an AirAsia flight, upon disembarking from the plane using the stairs, the steward asked us to turn on our torchlights (mobile phones).

"It was quite a hassle especially with hand-carry items as I also need to hold my phone," she said, adding she also experienced inconvenience when going to the toilet.

Cynthia added she saw people sitting in the dark waiting for their flights and the airport staff had to make announcements without using the public address system.

She said the only places with lights were the health declaration, Immigration counters and luggage collection areas.

The power supply at the airport was fully restored at 3.20am following a temporary disruption that started from 4.45pm yesterday.

The outage occurred during power supply migration works conducted by the airport's contractor and had affected certain areas of the terminal only.

Passenger processing at the terminal was able to carry on as usual due to the availability of alternative electricity supply provided by several generator sets for essential operations.

Flight operations such as landing, and take-off were not affected and there were no flight delays.

Acting Senior General Manager of Malaysia Airports, Kamaruzzaman Razali said that the airport operator deeply regrets the incident.

"We apologise for the inconvenience caused to our airport guests and retail partners during the power supply interruption.

"The airport technical team was immediately deployed to resolve the problem and they worked non-stop with the contractor to restore the main power supply.

"During this time, we had also deployed extra manpower to the affected areas to ensure the continued safety of passengers," he said in a statement released in the evening.

Kamaruzzaman also said that the airport team was very committed in ensuring that flight movements were not affected throughout the entire period.

All 14 departure and 22 arrival flights operated smoothly with the last flight taking off from the airport at 12.40am.