KUALA LUMPUR, July 1 — The long queues at immigration counters in airports are not due to non-compliance by officers but is caused by the sheer volume of passengers, the Immigration Department has said.

Immigration director-general Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali said the existing number of autogates — where Malaysian passengers pass through unmanned automated gates by scanning their passports — at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport departure hall was insufficient to cope with the high number of people.

"It has nothing to do with our officers failing to adhere to standard operating procedures.

"It’s normal to see crowds like that during festive seasons. Like traffic jams on highways, the same thing happens at KLIA,” he was quoted telling local daily New Straits Times.

"One of the measures to address this issue is to add more autogates,” he said, adding that the Immigration department has met with Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd and autogate vendors to discuss this matter.

He said his department deployed 128 officers during peak seasons at KLIA’s departure and arrival halls which have 46 and 40 counters respectively, noting that they tried to clear queues in half an hour.

In the same response to viral photos and videos of long lines at KLIA during the Hari Raya holidays, Mustafar also said the queues were held up by Malaysians who found themselves blacklisted because of failure to pay their study loans, tax and insolvency issues.

A spokesman from MAHB reportedly reminded passengers to show up early at the airport, adding that the airport management has a team to help manage the queue.

"We are also helping Immigration by giving them early information of passenger numbers to help them manage the counter load, depending on the peak waves for arrival or departure.”

The spokesman said airport management continuously monitors queues and alerts the Immigration department when the queue starts to build up.