SEPANG (March 18): The Ministry of Transport (MOT) has urged Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) to complete the Kuala Lumpur International Airport aerotrain project by year-end, instead of an earlier target set for the first quarter of 2025, according to its minister Anthony Loke.

“The project is ongoing right now, the contract has been renegotiated and it has been settled. The consortium that undertakes this project has been formed and we are monitoring the progress. We want them to complete the project [soon]; our target is by [the] end of this year,” he told reporters here on Monday after officiating the signing ceremony of MAHB’s new operating agreements with the government.

The aerotrain replacement project is currently being undertaken by a consortium consisting of Alstom Transport Systems (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, IJM Construction Sdn Bhd (IJMC) and Pestech Technology Sdn Bhd.

MAHB in January 2024 announced that it had agreed with Alstom and the IJMC-Pestech joint venture to steer the aerotrain replacement project back on track, confirming a previous report by The Edge in the prior month.

Alstom and Pestech were the original contractors for the train replacement project. MAHB terminated Pestech from the contract in August last year, citing “non-performance, compromising significant project milestones and risking delays to deliver the project within the required deadline”.

The three-year aerotrain replacement project came with two deadlines originally, the first being July 2024 for the first of the two aerotrains to be operational, followed by the second one in March 2025 for full completion, with both aerotrain services spanning about 1.5km.

The 25-year-old aerotrain was suspended in March last year, after a major breakdown that resulted in 114 passengers being stranded midway.

This occurred midway through the replacement programme, which was awarded to Pestech in December 2021, with Alstom supplying the aerotrain.