India’s premier airport services company Air India SATS Airport Services on Thursday announced the launch of the first ground handler in India to introduce automated aircraft exterior cleaning at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI), New Delhi, to be done by Nordic Dino II, an automated purpose built system.
After the trial period, the first automated aircraft exterior cleaning was done for Air India’s A320, and was completed in just one fourth of the usual time spent to clean a narrow body aircraft.
The Nordic Dino II, is a computerized and self-contained system that will bring in a high level of automation and sophistication in the aircraft exterior cleaning process. Conventionally, it takes at least five to six hours, 18 persons and gallons of water to clean one aircraft, but with the automated process, narrow body aircrafts can be cleaned in just two hours, thereby making cleaner aircrafts available in lesser time.
The cutting edge technology will improve the quality of exterior cleaning and will significantly reduce the number of resources and man hours deployed during conventional manual cleaning of aircrafts.
The robotic equipment has a washing height of 8.5 metres, and can easily wash up to B737 sized aircraft. The Automated cleaning system deployed by AISATS consists of a mobile power unit, spray nozzles and rotating cleaning brushes powered by a lightweight remote control and can cater to approximately five to seven aircrafts in a day at IGI airport, depending on the availability and location of the aircraft.
To operate the system and to carry out the cleaning process efficiently, AISATS has skilled personnel specially trained by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) instructor.
The GSE deployed is a mix of motorized and non-motorized ground handling equipment, such as Diesel Tractors, Passenger Stepladders, Aircraft Tow Bars and Towable Conveyors, etc., which accentuates AISATS’ capability to service an increased number of narrow body and wide body aircrafts.
By Baishakhi Dutta
