Ground handling provider dnata is adding four battery-electric passenger buses from manufacturer Cobus to its operation at Rome Fiumicino Airport, with the vehicles scheduled to begin carrying passengers between terminals and aircraft from mid-November.
The company frames the purchase as a continuation of its investment in electrifying its vehicle fleet in Italy. The four units are Cobus VEGA models, and dnata says it will be the first ground handler to deploy the new type.
A bus built for apron work
The vehicles were developed specifically for use on airport aprons, the areas where aircraft are parked, serviced and turned around. According to dnata, they offer higher passenger capacity than conventional airport buses, while redesigned doors are intended to speed up boarding and alighting and revised air conditioning is meant to improve comfort during transfers.
dnata has not disclosed battery capacity, range or charging power for the four vehicles.
Fleet and investment programme
The additions take the bus fleet at Fiumicino beyond its current 40 vehicles, of which 23 already run on electricity. dnata presents the new buses as a way to make apron handling more efficient and to keep aircraft turnaround times as short as possible.
The order sits inside a wider modernisation programme in which dnata has invested more than €30 million over the past three years. In that period the company acquired more than 550 new ground handling equipment units across Rome Fiumicino, Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate, including passenger buses as well as:
- baggage tractors;
- conveyor belts;
- passenger stairs;
- aircraft loaders;
- pushback tractors.
Across the three Italian airports dnata now operates more than 1,000 motorised ground handling units, over 60 per cent of which are electrically powered. Where full electrification is not yet operationally feasible, the company is gradually converting diesel-powered equipment to run on hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO).
Charging infrastructure and Italian footprint
dnata says further electrification also depends on the expansion of charging infrastructure at the airports, and that it is working with the respective airport operators to achieve this. On the company's account, the pace of further conversion is therefore tied to charging capacity available at each site.
In Italy dnata employs around 5,000 people and serves more than 60 airlines. At its three locations it handles over 150,000 flights, 46 million passengers and nearly 18 million pieces of baggage each year.
In unit terms the four buses are a modest addition, but they extend a fleet in which electric drive already accounts for more than half of the apron buses at Fiumicino, and they bring in a model dnata expects to raise capacity and speed up boarding on its passenger transfers.