Dnata is preparing to add four battery-electric apron buses to its ground-handling operation at Rome Fiumicino Airport. The Cobus VEGA vehicles are scheduled to start carrying passengers between terminals and aircraft by mid-November, and dnata says it will become the first ground handler to put the new model into service.
The buses were developed for airport apron duty rather than ordinary road transport. Dnata says they offer higher passenger capacity than conventional airport buses. Redesigned doors are intended to make boarding and alighting quicker, while improved air-conditioning is meant to improve comfort for travellers making the short trip across the apron. The company has not disclosed battery capacity, range or charging power, leaving the operational envelope of the vehicles unclear beyond their intended role.
The four buses are intended to support passenger movements between terminal buildings and aircraft stands, a routine apron task. Dnata presents the higher capacity and revised door layout as improvements for that job, but has not provided performance figures or a timetable beyond the mid-November start.
Fleet and turnaround targets
The four vehicles will expand the Fiumicino bus fleet beyond its current 40 units. Twenty-three of the existing buses are already electric. Dnata links the investment to more efficient apron handling and to keeping aircraft turnaround times as short as possible, though it has not published quantified effects from the new buses.
The purchase forms part of a wider modernisation programme covering dnata's Italian operations. Over the past three years, the company has invested more than €30 million and acquired more than 550 new ground-support equipment units at Rome Fiumicino, Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate. The equipment list includes passenger buses, baggage tractors, conveyor belts, passenger stairs, aircraft loaders and pushback tractors, indicating that electrification is being applied across several categories of apron equipment rather than only to passenger transport.
Electric share and HVO fallback
At the three Italian airports, dnata operates more than 1,000 motorised ground-handling units, of which more than 60% are now electrically powered. Where full electrification is not yet operationally feasible, the company is gradually converting diesel-powered equipment to hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO. Dnata says further electrification depends on expanding charging infrastructure at the airports, and that it is working with the relevant airport operators on that task.
In Italy, the company employs around 5,000 people and serves more than 60 airlines; across its three locations it handles over 150,000 flights, 46 million passengers and nearly 18 million pieces of baggage annually. The Fiumicino deployment adds a new model to a fleet that is already majority-electric in Italy.