It was indeed heartening to read that Lufthansa has resumed flights to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). In addition, MAHB (Malaysia Airport Holdings Berhad) is currently aggressively negotiating with major carriers in the likes of Qantas and British Airways.

It is definitely public knowledge that competition amongst major Asian airports has been stiff and intense with the emergence of a few world-class airports, eyeing for the position of regional flight hubs and gateways. The chicken and egg scenario seems very pertinent, major carriers will not fly into KLIA without a critical passenger mass and it will be hard to achieve a critical mass without international airlines playing a role.

Within a radius of almost less than 1,000 km, the KLIA is positioned head-on with Changi International Airport, Bangkok International Airport, Hong Kong International Airport and of course the new Pudong Airport in Shanghai with its state-of-the-art MagLev trains.

I would consider myself a frequent traveller and have travelled extensively between Asia and North America and also within the Asian region. Allow me to point out and share some of the finer points that makes a successful airport and truly passenger friendly airport.

Firstly, the Internet.

KLIA's website is impressive with flight departure and arrival information on the main screen. However, being a website that caters specifically to travellers, shouldn't information be structured according to the needs of a traveller, meaning that they are understandable to a traveller.

For example, there should be information pertaining to arrival (baggage, immigration and customs, transportation, rail transit, meeting points, weather information, rental cars), information pertaining to departure (flight check-in time and row, parking), information for transit travellers (dining, currency counters, shopping and entertainment, health care, baby room, resting area.

However, on KLIA's website, we have KLSE stock price ticker (I wonder why?), KLIA news and sections arranged accordingly under airport features, airport contacts, airport map, government procedures, passenger facilities and services.

The objective here is to disseminate information to the target audience, in this case travellers, and travellers are extremely familiar to concepts such as Check-in, Arrival, Departure and Transportation. The information structure of www.klia.com.my seems to reflect a scenario of information for the sake of information and not targeted information to an audience.

A nice example is the signage in the San Francisco International Airport, the signage to BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is marked as "Rail Transit to City" (with a little BART motif). However in KLIA, Express Rail Link (ERL) is still signed as ERL. Wouldn't a more informative sign be more appropriate? After all, not everyone knows ERL goes to Brickfields.

Secondly, ground staff.

Allow me to highlight three experiences I had in Chiang Kai Shek, Taipei, Changi and KLIA. In Taipei, upon arrival for transit I promptly asked the ground crew for my baby stroller. In halting English, I was told that my baby stroller will be arriving soon and to have my baggage counterfoil handy. Within two minutes, my baby stroller was passed to me and we duly waved goodbye to the ground staff.

In Changi, I was behind a shopper in a duty-free shop and I was impressed by the staff when he allowed the shopper to pay for his item in multiple currencies (using his electronic cash register as a currency converter, as he swiftly combined almost six currencies into a single purchase) and during the entire transaction he was almost assisting the shopper to 'dispose' of his entire range of smaller denomination currency notes. In the end, I saw a happy traveller, disposing his entire loose change of myriad currencies for a few more nice souvenirs and chocolate bars.

In KLIA, upon arrival on an EVA Air flight, I merely enquired with the ground staff in English about my stroller. Firstly, I was told to "tunggu". Then I enquired again with two young lady-usherers who were chatting with each other, in a quick jiffy both shrugged, said "tak tahu", turned and continued chatting. Momentarily however, my stroller came, brought over by an elderly Malaysia Airports gentleman and he wished me a nice day.

Upon departure, again on an EVA Air flight, a KLIA ground staff came up, and bluntly asked a passenger "Ada orang duduk sini?" She got a blank look from the passenger.

Two important areas to highlight here, KLIA is an international airport, serving passengers from all over the world. Why or how did the ground crew make an assumption that all Asians speak Bahasa Malaysia is beyond me. In addition, being a service personnel, it is almost inappropriate to just shrug and say "I don't know", and it does not kill to say "excuse me", when addressing a traveller; after all they are the ones bringing in the money.

Thirdly, entertainment.

In the age of satellite TV, streaming video over the Internet, travellers are still fed with TV3 and NTV7 or worse RTM over KLIA's "Entertainment TV". Would it not be more entertaining

or fulfilling for weary travellers to have dedicated TVs set up for sports (golf, tennis, ESPN), documentary (Discovery, National Geographic) or even cartoons (Disney) and not to mention music, and if we are targeting Japanese and Middle Eastern travellers, NHK and Al-Jazeerah. Take a look at Changi.

With all the limitations, I firmly believe MAHB has done averagely good with the KLIA. However the value chain of KLIA as an airport and hub does not lie solely with MAHB, almost all parties are responsible for a successful airport operation adding value along the chain. It's about time Malaysians wake up and realise building grand steel structures with glittering neon is not enough.

Hardware serves no purpose without good software to put some grace, usability, function and value into it. In general, we must realise that the world is closing in fast and competition will be stiff in all areas. Unless we step up our efforts of continuous improvement and customer service, we'll one day find ourselves way, way behind.