No way to get home
o Passengers get stranded at KLIA after flights cancelled
SEPANG: Local carriers have begun cancelling flights, leaving many who wish to return home stranded at the KL International Airport (KLIA).
Sabahan Soffian, 40, and eight others in his family have been stranded at the airport since Wednesday.
They had arrived early at the airport only to be told that their flight had been cancelled because of the movement control order (MCO) imposed at midnight on Tuesday.
“We came to Kuala Lumpur for a five-day vacation and were scheduled to fly back to Sandakan on Wednesday,” he said.
Soffian said he and his family had to spend Wednesday night at a hotel and pay for another flight scheduled for the following day. However, that flight was also cancelled.
“Now we have to extend our stay. I hope we have enough money to survive until we can go home.”
Soffian said he was informed that the earliest he and his family could get a flight home is Sunday (March 22).
For Karno, 48, an employee at a government-linked company, his six-day holiday with five others in his family has turned sour. His flight home to Kuching has also been cancelled. “We were supposed to take the 5.45pm flight yesterday but we were informed that our flight had been cancelled.”
He said he paid an additional RM3,000 for a one-way ticket home on another carrier. The flight was scheduled to leave at 9.45pm yesterday. It is unclear if that flight has also been cancelled.
Karno had purchased the round-trip tickets at a promotional price of RM1,500 for all six of them.
A foreign exchange student from China, Ling Ling, 21, considered herself lucky that she could get a flight back to Shanghai to be with her family.
Ling, who studies at the International Islamic University in Petaling Jaya said that with the abrupt imposition of the MCO, she had no choice but to leave the campus to be with her family.
“I am certainly afraid and worried about the current global pandemic. I would like to go home for now to be with my family.”