KUALA LUMPUR (July 1): The managing director of Malaysia Airport Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said the overall delay in the aerotrain replacement project was partly due to changes in government during the contractor appointment phase.
The airport operator’s managing director Datuk Mohd Izani Ghani said this when the bipartisan Public Accounts Committee (PAC) quizzed him on the sizeable gap between the board’s decision to replace the aerotrain system in 2016 and the contractor’s appointment in December 2021.
“One of the explanations I found — and I will speak frankly — is that during that period, Malaysian politics was also unstable,” Mohd Izani said during a proceeding in February 2025, according to the committee’s report issued on Wednesday.
“Governments changed frequently. Whenever the government changed, the MAHB board changed. The MAHB management also changed,” he explained.
Between 2016 and 2021, the country saw two government changes and three different prime ministers.
Pakatan Harapan (PH) came into government in May 2018, followed by the abrupt emergence of Perikatan Nasional in March 2020 after the Sheraton Move, a political manoeuvre in February 2020 that caused the collapse of the PH coalition government and a shift in federal power without a general election. The administration was later succeeded by a PN-Barisan Nasional coalition government led by an Umno prime minister in August 2021.
While Pestec International Bhd’s (KL:PESTEC) unit — Pestech Technology Sdn Bhd — was finally appointed as the aerotrain contractor in 2021, its appointment was terminated in August 2023 due to non-performance.
Nevertheless, Pestec maintained its involvement in the project via a consortium comprising French rolling stock maker Alstom SA and a joint venture between Pestec and IJM Corp Bhd (KL:IJM), which secured the job in January 2024.
The recurring issues with the aerotrain at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Terminal 1 has been a challenge for MAHB for years.
Even after a new aerotrain was installed and began operations in July 2025, several service disruptions occurred, which prompted MAHB to implement a phased "comprehensive action plan" to resolve the issues with the train's reliability. The plan was completed in May this year and the aerotrain resumed full 24/7 service on June 1.
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