ALOR SETAR, Sept 22 — Ferry operations at the Kuala Kedah Passenger Terminal which were temporarily suspended from Thursday until yesterday following warnings of strong winds and rough seas, resumed today.
Konsortium Ferrylines Ventures Sdn Bhd general manager Captain Dr Baharin Baharom said this involved four ferry trips from Kuala Kedah to Langkawi and five ferry trips from Langkawi to Kuala Kedah.
“After three days of operations being grounded, the first ferry trip from Kuala Kedah was at 1.30pm today awhile the first trip from Langkawi to Kuala Kedah was at 10.30 this morning,” he said when met at the Kuala Kedah Passenger Terminal here today.
“The weather conditions today are good, and we will monitor whether the terminal can continue to operate or not because we have been informed that there will be a transition phase of the monsoon starting this Tuesday which will cause heavy rain and strong winds.”
He said if there is a storm and strong winds that cause the ferry journey to discontinue, the journey for the ferry service and the roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ferry will be moved to the Kuala Perlis Passenger Terminal.
“We will increase the number of ferries as much as possible in Kuala Perlis. But if you see that the number of tourists entering Langkawi has decreased, it may be because the school holidays are over or they are worried when they see the rough sea conditions as reported on social media,” he said.
Meanwhile, Baharin said following the cancellation of the ferry services due to the bad weather, more than 6,000 passengers requested a refund while more than 5,000 changed their ticket dates and route to Kuala Perlis.
“Currently, more than RM130,000 has been returned to the affected passengers. We admit that the consortium is a little affected because it involves a large number of passengers estimated at over 12,000 people,” he said.
“We received a lot of (return) requests, that’s why we are operating 24 hours because we want to make sure that the affected passengers get back their money as soon as possible.”
A ferry passenger, Siti Zaharah Mansor, 55, from Sik said she was with 10 family members including her grandson Muhammad Faris Zaquan Makhruzi, 13, who is suffering from bone cancer, in Langkawi on Tuesday, and should have returned to Kuala Kedah yesterday.
“We saw a memo about the cancellation of the ferry services, so like it or not we had to change the date of our tickets. When we checked at the counter, there was a ferry this morning, so we took the tickets for the ferry at 10.30am.
“It was a smooth journey...the waves were calm. We always go to Langkawi, but this is the first time we ran aground and it is something that cannot be predicted so we need to be patient,” she said.
She also said that this was also her grandson’s first trip to Langkawi after recovering from his disease as the last time the boy went on holiday to the island was when he was three years old.
Meanwhile, Nurkhairina Arrysya Shaiful Zubaid, 19, from Sungai Petani said she went to Langkawi on Monday to see her father who works there and was supposed to return on Thursday.
“When informed that the ferry was delayed due to bad weather, I requested a refund from the ferry management and changed the travel date to today. The weather conditions today were good and the waves were calm,” she added. — Bernama
