PANAMA’s cabinet has approved the construction of a 2km extension of Panama Metro Line 2 to Tocumen Airport at a cost of $US 42.7m.

The extension will also serve the Specialised Higher Technical Institute (ITSE) and will benefit more than 5000 students, 8000 airport employees and the thousands of tourists visiting Panama.

The cabinet authorised Panama Metro to award a contract to Grupo de Empresas (GdE) for the design, supply, installation and testing of systems for the Line 2 extension. GdE includes Alstom, CIM, Sofratesa, Thales and TSO.

The extension is expected to be completed between February or March 2022, in time for the inauguration of the Central American and Caribbean Sports Games, which will be held in Panama City. The 21km Line 2 opened in April 2019.

The government also approved a $US 1.5m addendum to the contract between Panama Metro and the Thales SIX GTS France SAS-Sofratesa de Panama consortium for the preventive and corrective maintenance of the telecommunications system and the operations centre of Line 1. This addendum applies to the maintenance of Line 1’s ATS, telephony and intercom subsystems, fire detection, CCTV, Tetra radio, passenger information system, fibre optic network and Scada system.