The incident of stranded tourists after the Langkawi SkyCab cable car system broke down yesterday had not affected the crowd turnout for the ride today.

When the cable car resumed service at noon today, the number of tourists queuing up at the counter to get their tickets for the ride had exceeded 3,000, said Panorama Langkawi Sdn Bhd director, Azizan Noordin.

“The situation is like in any other day. By the time we resumed the operation, a lot of passengers were already queuing up to get their tickets and this figure does not include those who had booked their ride earlier,” he told reporters in Langkawi. 

There were also no cancellations received from tourists for the cable car ride, which is operated by Panorama Langkawi - a subsidiary of Langkawi Development Authority (Lada).

“The figure recorded so far today remained within the average daily figures of between 3,000 to 5,000 passengers,” he said.

Azizan said yesterday’s incident, where a faulty bearing caused the system to break down at 5.48pm, and could only be restored nearly six hours later, was being analysed thoroughly by a Panorama Langkawi technical team before they gave the go-ahead for the operation today.

He said the system designer, Dopplemayer of Austria had been informed of the incident and they have provided their advice to the local technical team.

“Coincidentally, a team of experts from Dopplemayer would be coming to Langkawi in April this year,” he said, adding that the cable car operation would be stopped for up to 15 days every year as an overall maintenance work period.

The Langkawi SkyCab, which spans about 5.9km, and is the longest cable car system in the world, has about 1.7km of its elevation rise at a 45-degree angle, making it world’s steepest cable car ride, with the highest point surpassing 700 metres.

“It had been the number one tourist attraction in Langkawi ever since it started 15 years ago and in the last year alone, the number of passengers was recorded at 1.5 million,” he added.

- Bernama