Cityliner Service 9 • Failed Attempt from Kota Bharu Bus Station to Kota Bharu Sultan Ismail Petra Airport by Bus (Defunct)

Having already tried the bus journey from Kota Bharu Sultan Ismail Petra Airport to Kota Bharu Bus Station on my previous trip, I decided to get to Sultan Ismail Petra Airport by the cheap and good Cityliner Service 9 again. However, this time, things turned out a bit differently.

Cityliner Kota Bharu has ceased operations some time in August 2020 based on the timeline of Facebook posts and comments. 

Having already checked the bus schedule on my previous trip, I had planned to catch the 2.40pm Cityliner Service 9 bus to Kota Bharu Sultan Ismail Petra Airport.

After confirming with the information counter on where to wait, I waited till 2.45pm with no sign of any Cityliner Service 9 in the terminal, or any bus in front of me for that matter.

After checking with the counter again, they mentioned that a bus is down today and that Cityliner Service 9 is running on a modified schedule today, with the next bus departing at around 3.30pm – totally off the published timetable.

As I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to check-in for my Scoot flight on time (no online check-in from Kota Bharu), I abandoned the bus plan and proceeded to call for a Grab instead. Thank you technology.

While it’s unfortunate that the bus was not operating as advertised, I guess it’s rare for a bus to break down anyway, so I just let this one incident slide. It’s probably tough financially to operate a full bus service with probably just one passenger (me) on that day anyway.