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.
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.