KLIA Implementing Male and Female Segregation During Boarding

Population of Malaysian travellers now are subjected to queueing based on genders.

Yes, just like in the Middle East.

I'm boarding a flight to Bangkok via Malindo and this was the scene at the boarding gate half an hour ago.

Klia

Note the woman on the phone walking towards the "female" line was just asked to move away from the line meant for male passengers towards the back of the line meant for women.

Klia

I posted this on my Facebook and some argued it could be a more effective method to handle the pat-down for men and women. However there was the problem where female travellers were 3 times the amount of male travellers on this flight. Which meant it wasn't long before the other line (male side) were empty and the security guys were just standing there being idle.

All while the female side was overwhelmed with luggages and passengers.

Klia

The method only proved to be highly inefficient.

Whether this is a new policy or a one time occurrence is unknown.

No explanation was given except that whoever was in the wrong line was asked to leave to the queue, only to move to the back of the queue on the 'rightful' side.

What's your thought? Is this acceptable or do you think this is a step toward male and female inequality in our nation? Is the segregation necessary? 

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24 kissed Nicole

  1. Clearly this is so pat search can be done with courtesy and respect to passengers. Would you as a lady prefer male officers to pat search you? There are only 4 officers on duty at certain security gates. 2 male and 2 female. Hence, the two lines probably because understaffed att.

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    1. Why not divide male and female officers equally at each gate?

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    2. Simple, just position a female officer at each gate like every other country. I've never been patted down by a man in all my life and yet this is the first time I queue in women only lane outside of middle east. There is no need for gender segregation. It made it incredibly inefficient and women passengers were made to queue for 20 mins just to enter boarding gate when the men's lane has cleared some 10 mins ago.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I was there yesterday and was shocked ! It was highly inefficient and the worst part was they insist on the gender segregation even after pat down. The line to scan the boarding tix was so long and there was no space at all and to me it was chaos. The officers kept asking the female passengers to stand away from the scanners but there was hardly space at all. Totally inefficient

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  3. Come on lar...Say based in Malaysia, then you also need to know that now is the Raya holidays. Airport security not enough man power. Don't have to rant on petty things. What is 10 minutes wait?, not that you will miss the flight.

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    1. What is this? We are talking about the airport here - the main entry way for people entering and exiting the country. So what if it is the Raya holidays? This doesn't give anyone a reason to compromise the security and operations of the airport. Your apathy towards the significance of this event is simply mind-boggling.

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    2. Actually it took me half an hour to clear security check, the flight was 2 hours delayed, and then further delayed by another hour during the clearance. Total delay 3 hour and all of us missed our connecting flight. I woke up 6am and got to my destination in Thailand 11pm at night.

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    3. Aiyoo.. yo.. Ppl please don't be hypocrites and ignorant. At what time did the airport security compromised? If that would had happened, you would definitely won't be ranting bout the delay in clearing security checks. Have you travel to the States during Christmas? Or China during new year? Please take the red eye flights if you don't have patience, I guarantee clearing customs, immigration, and security will be a breeze. An avid and frequent traveller would have anticipated all of this at any country. A tip too, please get travelling insurance while travelling.

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  4. Not one time occurance. They did it for my flight, Etihad, KLIA to Abu Dhabi, June this year. I insisted and kept queing at my line, lack of female immigration or security officer is not an excuse. It is klia and authority's duty to provide sufficient officers. We need to petition n campaign against this gender segregation, it is highly ineffective, especially for big family travelling with small kids!

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    1. only your flight and this webpage admin flight or all? sorry to ask.. wanted to know..

      if all flight, maybe is new policy, but if only selected/international/domestic flight, then something wrong/lack of staff.

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    2. How can it be in efficient?
      Both female security are doing the check. None was sitting, probably the only security was sitting was the one monitoring the x-ray scanners. Tell me having a two Lane or a single Lane Road is more efficient? This gender segregation is purely to get things moving faster full stop.

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  5. this is a good practise...gud job..i support this decision..

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  6. whoa so many supporters of this decision.... sad :(

    Out there there are many unemployed students/graduates, why not employ them to be one of immigration staff? Give them training like in Immigration Department policy and phased them to work in Malaysian airport based on where they stay.

    for example I stay in KL, nearest airport to me is KLIA, then my boss( IMM Dpt) will phased me to KLIA or KLIA 2

    I am sure by doing this, we can reduce unemployment in Malaysia and Immigration Department will also have extra people to handle KLIA 1 or 2 or any Malaysian airport during the holidays.

    win for IMM
    win for graduates
    win for Malaysians


    I am not sure but can I ask, is this only your flight @Nicole that hit by these check?

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  7. Your comment "like the Middle East " is incorrect. Actually in UAE, there is no segregation at all. In Saudi Arabia, immigration is not segregated, when you go through security, men and woman are segregated BUT for boarding there is no segregation..

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  8. Ga papa siy menurutku, asal petugas dan loket perempuannya dibanyakin. Tiga x lipat dr loket cowo. Kalau ga, ya numpuk begitu. Semoga keadaan harus antri lama begini hanya sementara.

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  9. Haiyaaaaa.......everything do also wrong..CLOSED DOWN THE AIRPORT LAH !
    You guys go to Singapore and take the flight lah ! Day and night...complaint...complaint...complaint....puiiiihhhhh.....

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    Replies
    1. UMNO cybertrooper spotted..want us to keep quiet and accept what happen around us.

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  10. As a fellow frequent traveler and blogger (and though an expat, having lived in Malaysia for nearly 4 years), considering the publicity this has achieved in mainstream media, I think the airport and its people got a very rough ride here; this was, at absolute worst, a bit of an inconvenience standing in a slightly longer queue than 'the other one' for a few minutes.

    For those unfamiliar with KL International Airport (1), security screening is more or less immediately prior to boarding the aircraft. This situation is not necessarily representative at all of the airport day-in and day-out (certainly I passed through just last week and saw none of this), but nor is this some large centralised search facility like in other major airports, where a longer queue could mean missing the flight. In this case, after walking through security screening, you would go down an escalator and board the plane. So there was really no chance of missing the flight in this case.

    Secondly, as a frequent flyer, you are surely aware that same-gender luggage searches and pat-downs is the norm nearly universally across the world. This is not something unusual having females search females, or males searching males - it's standard practice. What wasn't (for whatever reason) usual, was dividing up the 2 search stations by gender - thus requiring the gender split in the queues, vs. say stationing a male and a female at each of the stations. But maybe they had reasons, it had been more efficient previously, who knows - hardly the end of the world either way.

    I'm very disappointed considering how well - on an international basis - I find this airport mostly runs (bar how long luggage takes to come out, but that's another days work!) that this story got so much traction for what is, at most, a few minutes of extra queue with nearly no threat of missing the flight.

    Either that, or I still don't quite get what was so bad about it beyond the inconvenience?

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    1. Actually, the flight was already delayed by 2 hours and a further 1 hour delay while clearing security. Which made us missed our connecting flights. And... I didn't expect to gain the traction it did but it did.

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    2. Actually, the flight was already delayed by 2 hours and a further 1 hour delay while clearing security. Which made us missed our connecting flights. And... I didn't expect to gain the traction it did but it did.

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