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- Despite the four disruptions in its four months of operations, chief airports officer Bryan John Thompson said the aerotrain’s operational service availability performance has been above 98%, save for its dip to 95.89% in October.
SEPANG (Nov 14): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) on Friday said ‘standard failures’ which caused the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) aerotrain service disruptions have been resolved. The aerotrain’s daily 10-hour offline period from Nov 15, 2025 is to ensure that there are no future issues.
During a press briefing on Friday, chief airports officer Bryan John Thompson said the four aerotrain service disruptions were “all for different reasons”.
“To come up with the specifics of each of them…they were standard failures that took place during the train’s operations,” Thompson said, when asked for the specific cause of each incident.
“Each of them were unrelated, and different problems that were picked up in real-world operations. They have been addressed, and this comprehensive action plan (CAP) will go to a point where we can make sure that there are no issues in the future,” he added.
The aerotrain service at KLIA faced service disruptions four separate times since the resumption of service on July 1, according to MAHB.
The two latest incidents on Oct 15 and 28 were attributed to issues with the aerotrain’s power system, under the purview of the joint venture between IJM Corp Bhd (KL:IJM) and Pestech International Bhd (KL:PESTEC).
French rolling stock maker Alstom SA is also a contractor for the project, as the original equipment manufacturer supplying the aerotrain.
The action plan to rectify the aerotrain’s issues will begin on Saturday, with a completion date yet to be formally determined. The action plan comprises inspection, testing, alignment and verification for Stage 1 starting on Nov 15, followed by system and vehicle testing in Stage 2 beginning Dec 1 and trial operations starting on Dec 15 as the final Stage 3.
MAHB announced the plan on Oct 31 after preliminary assessments of the service disruptions revealed a declining trend in the train system’s reliability.
While the aerotrain went through a testing process before it resumed operations in July, MAHB managing director Datuk Mohd Izani Ghani said operations in a “real world” environment are different.
“It has gone through testing, but in the real world, when you do it under real operations, that’s when we have to address all the issues that come up,” he said.
'What's past is past'
When asked whether current issues faced by the system are linked to the government’s instruction to hasten the project’s delivery or initial contract delays related to Pestech, Mohd Izani said the airport operator is only looking forward.
“I think to me, what’s past is past. We are here today to do the CAP to make sure we address the issues so we can go into the new year with full reliability,” he said.
When pressed again, Pestech group managing director Datuk Mohamed Razeek Md Hussain Maricar said, “I think it's not relevant at the moment. What happened in the past has no relevance to what we are looking at now. We are just moving forward.”
Pestec and Alstom were initially awarded the project in December 2021.
MAHB terminated its contract with Pestec in August 2023, citing "non-performance, compromising significant project milestones and risking delays to deliver the project within the required deadline" as the reasons.
In January 2024, it was announced that Alstom and the IJM-Pestec joint venture would complete the KLIA aerotrain project. Under the tripartite agreement, both parties are independently responsible for their own scopes of work.
The project was initially slated for completion by the first quarter of 2025, but was delayed to July.
Despite the four disruptions in its four months of operations, Thompson said the aerotrain’s operational service availability performance has been above 98%, save for its dip to 95.89% in October.
“From a global standard in terms of rail, above 99% is excellent—it's in world-class standards. We are holding ourselves to a very high standard to make sure that the traveling public can receive the best service,” he said.
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