Ground handling provider dnata is adding four battery-electric apron buses to its operation at Rome Fiumicino Airport. The vehicles, the VEGA model supplied by manufacturer Cobus, are due to start moving passengers between terminals and aircraft from mid-November, the company said.
dnata describes itself as the first ground handler to put the new Cobus model into service. The buses were developed specifically for apron work and for shuttling travellers between terminal buildings and parked aircraft. Compared with conventional airport buses, dnata says the VEGA offers greater passenger capacity, while redesigned doors are intended to shorten boarding and alighting times and revised air conditioning is meant to improve comfort on board. The company did not release figures for battery capacity, driving range or charging power.
Fleet grows beyond 40 vehicles
The four additions will take the bus fleet at Fiumicino past its current 40 vehicles, of which 23 are already electrically powered. dnata frames the purchase as a way to make apron handling more efficient and to help keep aircraft turnaround times as short as possible.
Several practical questions remain open in the company's announcement: how the new buses are charged, how far they can run between charging sessions and how the four units will be scheduled across shifts are not disclosed. Such details would indicate how much of the airport's passenger transfer workload the electric fleet can absorb.
Part of a wider modernisation programme
The buses belong to a modernisation programme through which dnata has spent more than €30 million over the past three years. In that period the company has taken delivery of more than 550 new ground handling equipment units across Rome Fiumicino, Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate. The purchases cover passenger buses as well as baggage tractors, conveyor belts, passenger stairs, aircraft loaders and pushback tractors.
Across the three Italian airports, dnata runs more than 1,000 motorised ground handling units, and more than 60 per cent of them are now electrically powered. For equipment where full electrification is not yet operationally practical, the company is converting diesel units step by step to run on hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO).
Charging infrastructure sets the pace
How quickly the remaining fleet can be electrified depends, according to dnata, on the build-out of charging infrastructure at the airports. The company says it is working with the respective airport operators on that expansion.
Italy is a substantial market for the handler: it employs around 5,000 people there and serves more than 60 airlines, handling over 150,000 flights, 46 million passengers and close to 18 million pieces of baggage a year at its three locations.