KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 – Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha said today international airports will broadcast announcements in Tamil from next year, catering to the large volume of tourists from India, especially Chennai.
At the moment, the KL International Airport and the low-cost carrier terminal (LCCT) in Sepang both broadcast their announcements in three languages: Malay, English and Mandarin and adding Arabic and Japanese during certain seasons, according to Kong’s deputy Datuk Abdul Rahim Bakri.
“The government realised that almost 90 per cent of the passengers who take the Chennai route understand Tamil rather than English due to differences in accents,” Kong (picture) was reported saying in The Star today.
According to the minister, both KLIA and the LCCT received a total of 434,050 passengers this year from Chennai, with 207,697 departures and 226,353 arrivals.
The government had reversed its decision following a public outcry.
On December 13, Abdul Rahim was reported saying the government had no plans to broadcast airport announcements in Tamil as passengers from India spoke a variety of dialects such as Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Telugu.
He added that they were also conversant in English.
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