SEPANG - Malaysia Airports continues to raise its safety standards in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic by having its airports undergo the Airports Council International (ACI) health assessment through its Airport Health Accreditation (AHA) Programme. The 7 airports that have been rigorously assessed include KL International Airport, Penang International Airport, Kota Kinabalu International Airport, Kuching International Airport, Langkawi International Airport, Subang Airport and Malaysia Airports' wholly owned Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG) in Turkey. Last month, ISG became the first airport in the Group to receive the accreditation. The other 6 airports are expected to receive the accreditation in the second quarter this year. The AHA programme ensures the implementation of all health and safety measures at the airports are aligned with the industry best practices, particularly the ACI Aviation Business Restart and Recovery guidelines and recommendations by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Restart Task Force. The AHA is awarded based on the health measures and procedures implemented by the airports including cleanliness and disinfection, physical distancing, availability of facilities, staff safety and passenger communications. The accreditation enables airports to demonstrate their safety practices in a measurable and an established manner.

According to the group chief executive officer (Group CEO) of Malaysia Airports, Dato' Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh, 'As a global airport operator, we have remained vigilant in upholding health and safety measures in our daily operations since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over and above this, the AHA programme ensures that we comply to strict standard operating procedures (SOPs) benchmarked with other global airports. We hope the accreditation programme will further encourage air travel for both domestic and international sectors. At ISG, we have seen better recovery rates where we registered 1.3 million passenger movements in the last 2 months consecutively, and we hope this new accreditation will further boost the recovery for ISG and the other airports.'

Malaysia Airports have leveraged on technology extensively in implementing safety measures at its network of airports such as high-end thermal scanners and UV ray disinfection facilities for washrooms, escalators and baggage reclaim, among others. The practice of physical distancing has also been brought a notch higher with the first 'Aerobot', a smart robot, that roams the terminal in ISG to remind passengers to keep a safe distance. Besides that, the retail experience for passengers has also evolved to be safer and more efficient with the introduction of e-commerce platforms, 'shopMYairports' and 'shop@saw' in Malaysia and Turkey respectively, enabling orders and payments to be made online before passengers collect them at the airport prior to catching their flight. The travel-exclusive online shopping platforms ensure more effective practice of physical distancing, cashless payments, and contactless transactions with the emergence of new travel norms.

(C) 2021 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire