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The Empty Lanes of Privilege at KLIA2
By Mihar Dias June 2026
The first thing many visitors experience upon arriving at Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 2 is not efficiency. It is a queue.
Not the queue for immigration or baggage collection. The queue just to drop off passengers.
Anyone who regularly uses Terminal 2 knows the ritual. Cars crawl bumper to bumper along a single congested lane, drivers anxiously watching the clock because stopping beyond the allotted ten minutes attracts a RM100 fine. Tempers rise, horns sound, families scramble to unload luggage, and everyone wonders why something so simple has become so unnecessarily stressful.
Then look to the left.
Two lanes nearest the terminal entrance often remain almost completely empty.
A Grab driver explained the reason with a shrug. Those lanes are reserved for VIPs and official vehicles.
Whether or not they are needed at that particular moment is irrelevant. They remain empty—waiting.
Waiting for the occasional dignitary.
Waiting for a solitary police escort.
Waiting while thousands of ordinary Malaysians inch forward in a manufactured bottleneck.
It is a perfect metaphor for modern Malaysia.
The privileged are given space just in case they appear. The ordinary citizen must compete for what little remains.
Terminal 2 was conceived with an inspiring promise: "Everyone Can Fly." It democratised air travel. Students, migrant workers, young families, pensioners and first-time travellers suddenly found flying within reach.
Yet somewhere along the way, the philosophy appears to have changed.
Instead of designing the terminal around the needs of the many, it now accommodates the convenience of the very few.
One cannot help noticing the irony.
The people most likely to use Terminal 2 are those travelling on tight budgets. They count every ringgit. Many arrive in crowded Grab cars or with relatives who have driven long distances simply to send them off.
These are hardly passengers asking for luxury.
They are merely asking for a fair chance to stop safely, unload their bags and say goodbye without feeling as though they are competing in a Formula One pit stop.
Meanwhile, those important enough to require VIP treatment rarely travel on low-cost airlines in the first place. Even if they do, must two prime lanes remain idle throughout the day in anticipation of their arrival?
Public infrastructure should serve the public first.
If there is spare capacity after meeting the needs of ordinary users, by all means reserve it for official duties. But keeping valuable road space empty while thousands endure unnecessary congestion sends precisely the wrong message.
It says convenience belongs to status.
It says empty space for the powerful matters more than crowded space for everyone else.
Policies such as these may seem minor. They are not. They quietly reinforce a culture that separates the "haves" from the "have-nots," where privilege is not earned by necessity but reserved by title.
Malaysia has spent decades trying to narrow social and economic divides. Yet sometimes inequality is not found in statistics. It is found in something as ordinary as a traffic lane.
Terminal 2 should reflect the spirit in which it was built.
If it truly belongs to the people, then let it serve the people first.
Perhaps it is time to ask a simple question.
Why should thousands wait so that one important person never has to?
If VIPs require exclusive facilities, our airports already have terminals and lounges designed for that purpose. Let those who enjoy privilege also use the infrastructure created for privilege.
Leave Terminal 2 to the travellers for whom it was intended—the ordinary Malaysians whose taxes, fares and patience keep the country moving.
After all, "Everyone Can Fly" should also mean everyone deserves to arrive and depart with equal dignity.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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