Empty train cars are set to begin rolling through LAX the week of April 20, the first real test of an Automated People Mover that’s already years behind schedule and facing a fresh legal complication heading into its final stretch.
The 2.25-mile system was supposed to open in 2023. It didn’t. Now, with FIFA World Cup matches coming to Los Angeles in June, that deadline has effectively slipped off the calendar too.
Jake Adams, the airport executive managing $5.5 billion worth of LAX upgrades, laid out exactly why the math doesn’t work. “The requirement is that [the contractor has] to operate it for 30 consecutive days without a hiccup,” Adams said, describing the system demonstration phase that kicks off this month. He’s talked to other airports that built comparable systems, and based on those conversations, he expects the full testing process to run about 60 days. That puts any realistic passenger launch well past the World Cup’s June kickoff.
There’s no sugar-coating what that means. The people mover isn’t a minor amenity. It’s the connective tissue of a much larger LAX overhaul, a train designed to move travelers between terminals and the L.A. Metro system without ever touching a car, a bus, or the gridlocked roads surrounding the airport. For years, airport officials sold it as the fix to one of the worst ground transportation experiences at any major American airport. It’s still not open.
What travelers near the airport will see starting the week of April 20 is the train running empty, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on the same schedule it’ll use once passengers are allowed on board. Adams called it “a big milestone for the project, and a visible milestone.”
The 30-day clock is unforgiving. A train car that breaks down entirely doesn’t just count as a problem, it resets the entire clock back to zero. Even a door that fails to open at a platform registers as a strike. There’s no averaging out the bad days against the good ones. Sustained failures don’t just delay the test, they restart it.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that runs LAX, is in a sharpening dispute with its contractor that’s been building since last year. The fight centers on repairs to electrical equipment inside a metering cabinet, repairs that required a partial power shutdown lasting from February to July 2025. That shutdown temporarily set back testing of systems that allow central control of the people mover.
The contractor, LINXS, a consortium hired to design, build, and operate the train, says the metering cabinet repairs weren’t its problem to fix. Los Angeles World Airports disagrees. According to initial reporting based on public records requests, the two sides have been escalating their exchanges considerably since the electrical problem first emerged.
Legal fights between airport agencies and major contractors aren’t unusual on projects at this scale. What makes this one worth watching is the timing. The people mover is already 20 months past its original 2023 opening target, and the World Cup isn’t the last deadline in play. The 2028 Summer Olympics are coming to Los Angeles, and transit access to LAX is one of the more visible logistical tests the city will face.
Adams isn’t wrong that empty trains running at LAX represents real progress. The system has to prove it can operate continuously under load before anyone gets on board, and starting that clock is genuinely significant. But the gap between “testing” and “open” still involves 60 days of flawless performance, resolution of an active contract dispute, and whatever comes after the 30-day demonstration wraps.
That’s a lot left to go.