Credit agency Fitch Ratings has dealt another blow to the troubled Skylink people mover train at Los Angeles International Airport, downgrading the project’s debt deeper into junk bond territory over the continued inability of the contractor and city’s airport department to complete the project.
The downgrade — to B-, from BB four months ago — “reflects the near certainty” that contractor LINXS won’t have the 2.25-mile train running by Dec. 8, leading to a “technical event of default and could give rights to either LINXS or Los Angeles World Airports … to issue project termination notices,” Fitch said in a report this week.
“It’s an uncommon action of severity,” Fitch analyst Seth Lehman told The Times. “We were under the view that there was a fair amount of cushion for LAWA and LINXS to settle on disputes, or for LINXS to show that they can have the trains run safely per this reliability test.”…