In 2050, the day-to-day airside operations at Royal Schiphol Group will have changed significantly. By replacing ground handling equipment with an interconnected fleet of self-driving zero-emission vehicles, assets and robots, we aim to automate airside processes as an answer to several pressing challenges.
Continuous heavy lifting, working in tight spaces in uncomfortable positions, dragging, pushing, pulling and lifting load over the head strain the body and leads to chronic injuries and sick leave.
Emissions caused by airplane engines such as Co2, NOx, but also fine particles and ultra fine particles have an impact on the health of people working at airports. We need to implement innovative solutions that eliminate avoidable emissions and exposure and improve the air quality in those areas where people work.
Growing demand due to economic recovery post COVID, ageing population, slow job readiness due to extensive training and security checks make it difficult to find and retain airport staff. By developing autonomous airside operations, we mitigate the impact of staff shortages, ensuring uninterrupted operations in challenging labor market conditions.
We plan a step-by-step transition towards autonomous operations and commit to experiment, develop and implement autonomous innovations. Learning from experiments and pilots allows us to understand and tackle the obstacles ahead of us.
During the turnaround of the aircraft, a critical step is connecting to ground power to save fuel and prevent avoidable emissions that negatively impact air quality. We are exploring how to automate this process during the critical period between arrival and departure.
Traditionally, staff connect aircraft to power when they land and park at the apron, allowing the aircraft to keep electric systems (e.g. lights, air conditioning, avionics, heating) running while the engines and Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) are shut down. Resulting in fuel savings, emission reductions and decreased wear and tear of the engines.
Staff shortages result in waiting aircraft with running engines and APU’s until staff is available to connect the aircraft to ground power, resulting in avoidable in emissions and a decreased operational performance.
The current process imposes significant physical strain and risks injuries when manually dragging the heavy cable and plug to aircraft and lift and connect it above the head. This process needs to be adapted to eliminate the physical burden that people are placed under.
Our ambition is to address these challenges with Autonomous Connection technology, having a direct impact on creating a healthy work environment as well as operational performance.