Why KLIA keeps failing: it’s time to blame airport management, not ministers

For years, every time something goes wrong at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport – a breakdown, a leak, a ‘waterfall’, an Aerotrain failure, malfunctioning systems or passengers forced to walk on tracks – many instinctively turn their anger towards one person: the transport minister.

It has become a national reflex. The minute a video goes viral, the minister’s name trends on social media, as if he personally tightened the bolts, sealed the roofs or supervised the rail alignment.

But this habit of blaming the wrong person is precisely why the problems at KLIA keep repeating.

Many have never truly held accountable the people who actually manage, run, operate and maintain the airport.

Until the public understands who is genuinely responsible, KLIA’s failures will remain a long, embarrassing, never-ending story.

KLIA is not run by the Ministry of Transport (even if the ministry has regulatory oversight). It is not a department under the minister’s direct control.

It is operated by Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) – a government-linked company that is 100% owned by Khazanah Nasional Berhad, which in turn reports directly to the Ministry of Finance.

In other words, KLIA is a billion-ringgit corporate entity managed by professionals, overseen by a board of directors, and staffed by a full management team whose job – and whose pay – is to ensure everything works smoothly. And these are not small salaries, fees and allowances.

The people managing KLIA’s operations are not volunteers, not part-timers and certainly not powerless. They are appointed to ensure operational excellence and paid handsomely to prevent crises, not react to them. They are entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining one of the most important national gateways in Malaysia.

So when the Aerotrain breaks down 19 times in just 90 days, despite being newly relaunched after a major upgrade, that is not a ministerial issue. That is a managerial failure.

When passengers are forced to walk along the tracks because of technical faults, that falls under MAHB’s operational oversight.

When a waterfall pours through the ceiling because a contractor left plywood blocking the drainage channels during roof repairs, that is project mismanagement. When KLIA’s systems fail, delay, crash, jam or underperform, the accountability belongs to the people paid millions to make the airport run – not the minister who has no direct hand in operations.

Yet, every time a problem occurs, the public narrative is predictable: blame the politician. Transport ministers come and go, but KLIA’s recurring failures remain, simply because the culture within MAHB has not changed.

This is what some call “ketuanan dinosaur” – the dominance of outdated thinking, recycled contractors, old habits and internal inertia. It is a system where the same people, the same practices and the same excuses return year after year. A system where contractors are recycled, supervision is weak, maintenance is inconsistent, and oversight is often cosmetic.

And behind this lies a culture of corporate comfort, where top management rarely faces public pressure because criticism is always redirected upward – towards the minister, never towards the company.

The Aerotrain saga is a perfect example. After millions were spent upgrading the system, it still stalled repeatedly. Contractors responsible for the trains and signalling and for the power systems remain under defect liability periods.

The breakdowns were apparently due to power issues, loose components and technical mismatches. These failures were not political. They were operational, managerial and preventable.

The infamous ‘waterfall’ incident on 14 November demonstrated the same pattern. Workers performing rooftop waterproofing work left behind plywood, sealing the drainage channels when evacuating during lightning activity. The result: rainwater accumulated, overflowed and poured into the terminal, as seen in a dramatic viral video.

This was not a government policy failure. It was a clear lapse of supervision and safety protocols by the contractor and the MAHB team overseeing the project.

Yet again, people shouted at the minister.

It is time to break the cycle. KLIA cannot improve unless we direct our scrutiny, criticism and expectations at the correct parties – the board of directors and the senior management of MAHB.

These are the people empowered and paid to run the airport. They are the guardians of performance and custodians of standards. They are the ones entrusted with the millions allocated for maintenance, upgrades, vendor selection and operational reliability.

If KLIA continually embarrasses the country, it is a reflection of their oversight, not the minister’s.

Airports are complex ecosystems. They do not function on political speeches. They function on engineering discipline, maintenance culture, procurement integrity and managerial accountability.

When any of these values slip, the entire system suffers. And at KLIA, these issues have clearly compounded over the years.

Malaysia has the talent, resources and capacity to run a world-class airport. We have done it before. KLIA was once ranked among the best in the world.

But to reach that level again, we must demand world-class discipline and leadership.

That starts by calling out the right people when things go wrong. It means asking tough questions of MAHB’s leadership. It means expecting Khazanah to appoint individuals with true operational excellence. It means insisting on transparency, real KPIs [key performance indicators] and a culture that prioritises results over excuses.

For too long, people have been shouting at the wrong door. As long as we keep blaming the minister, the real culprits will keep hiding in comfort. The airport will continue to break, leak, stall, jam, malfunction and trend for the wrong reasons.

If Malaysia truly wants a world-class airport again, accountability must finally land where it truly belongs.

Until that happens, KLIA’s long-running saga will remain exactly what it has become – a never-ending story, repeated one breakdown at a time.

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