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Ignacio Lillo
Malaga
Monday, 23 October 2023
An escalator at Malaga Airport's train station has been out-of-action for two months while waiting on a spare part that is being shipped to Spain from abroad.
"The maintenance company, Schindler, is waiting to receive the necessary item from Korea, and this is delaying its repair". This was the reply that the customer relations department of Malaga's Cercanías local train service sent to Francisco Moya, a resident of Torremolinos who uses the Costa del Sol line on a daily basis and has been dubbed "Renfe's scourge" for his insistent approach to pointing out issues to the state rail operator.
"I asked about the problem a couple of weeks ago, because I saw that the escalator had been broken for some time and was still like that," he said. The escalator first broke down on 20 August. "I made the complaint both to report it and to keep a record of the incidents I see, so that I can record the date and the response, but I didn't know then that it had already been like that for several weeks".
The train operator's response, some days later, was that the fault had already been passed on to the maintenance company, which claimed it does not have the necessary parts to fix it. "But the surprise was that they didn't know when it would be repaired because the spare parts needed to come from Korea," Moya said. "I thought they were messing around with me, that it sounded like a joke. "The moving staircase is made by Schindler, which is a Swiss company, and I don't know if there are spare parts in Europe, but it seems strange to me. In theory, it is a simple and very common mechanism in all types of buildings and locations".
A Renfe spokesman confirmed the escalator at the airport station has been broken for some time and is awaiting the maintenance company to replace the parts and fix it. "There are no deadlines because it depends on where the spare parts have to be brought from and the delivery times," they said.
Going up in a lift
Moya accepted the state train operator's explanation, that there are alternative ways up from the platform: "It is true that there is another staircase, but it is either set to go up or down, it can't work in both directions . There are also two lifts, but they are not on the same platform but on different levels, and the lift has a very limited capacity to take passengers and their luggage".
"It is a pitiful impression of the city, which conveys the idea of neglect in maintenance. We all understand that things break and have to be fixed, but still the excuse after two months is that the parts have to come from Korea?" he added.
"If Renfe were a private company, the solution would already be in place, and especially at a stop as emblematic as the airport," said Moya.
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