KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — All four government lawmakers, who were earlier stranded in Indonesia after their flight got cancelled, have safely landed in Malaysia and have made it to the Parliament for the evening session.
Tuaran MP Datuk Seri Wilfred Madius Tangau, who is the immediate past president of Upko, Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen from DAP, Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung and Subang Jaya MP Wong Chen — who are both from PKR, managed to get an earlier flight on Batik Air after being stranded at the Jakarta International Airport for over 20 hours.
All four federal lawmakers reached the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at about 1pm and proceeded to freshen up before attending Parliament.
Wong was the first to announce on his official Facebook that they had landed safely after going through a tiring ordeal in Jakarta, Indonesia.
“It is now 1pm, I am with YB Kelvin (Yii Lee Wuen) waiting for the KLIA train to KL Sentral.
“I am a bit bemused that our plane delay had made national news. Thanks to the perseverance of YB Wilfred (Madius Tangau) who relentlessly contacted the Malaysia Airlines office.
“We managed to catch an earlier flight (back to Kuala Lumpur) via Batik Air, instead,” posted Wong.
The PKR parliamentarian said that their ordeal was somewhat funny as all four went to Jakarta on a human rights mission and in trying to come back to Malaysia, they had to deal with a consumer rights matter.
“It has been an annoying experience. I had to cancel two events in Parliament, slept very poorly yesterday but I am just so glad to be (back) home.
“I should be in Parliament at around 3pm, after a quick shower and change of clothes,” said Wong.
Prior to being on the flight back, Yii explained that he received a call this morning while asleep, stating that there are several slots available to fly us back on a Batik Air flight at around 9.45am (Jakarta time).
“This is to ensure we can be back in Parliament at least for the evening session (Parliament lasts till 9pm tonight).
“If not we may need to take a later flight which was first scheduled at 2pm, but we received notification it is now rescheduled to 6pm (which may change again) meaning we will only arrive in KLIA around midnight the earliest,” he said.
In a separate Facebook post, Yii said in order not to miss the early Batik Air flight, he packed, washed up, and went down in less than 10 minutes.
After arriving in KLIA, he went back to his hotel to freshen up, change and rush to Parliament.
Lee on the other hand, managed to make it to Parliament at 3pm and later uploaded a live session on his Facebook.
Yesterday, the four were stranded at the Jakarta International Airport after their scheduled flight back to Malaysia was cancelled due to their Malaysia Airlines plane encountering technical difficulties.
All four lawmakers were in the Indonesian capital for the past three days to attend the Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights conference and were supposed to be back for today’s Dewan Rakyat sitting to debate the Budget and other matters.
In his Facebook post yesterday, Madius said all four of them were supposed to board the 6.40pm Malaysia Airlines plane home yesterday but the flight was delayed and cancelled.
The current Dewan Rakyat session is scheduled to end on April 4 as announced by Speaker Datuk Seri Johari Abdul last week.
Currently, MPs are debating the revised Budget 2023 that was re-tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who is also the finance minister on February 24.
