Brussels Airport will open in the coming months carrying out tests with a taxi bot with partner TUI fly. The taxibot is a semi-automatic towing system that runs on biodiesel. This allows the engines to be started later.
Since last week, a test project has been running at Brussels Airport with TUI fly, involving taxiing with a taxi bot. That device, which looks like a normal one pushbacktractor, runs on biodiesel and is semi-automatic. This allows the pilots to maintain control. The taxibot allows aircraft to drive to the runway without engines, so they only have to start the engines at a later stage.
It will now be evaluated whether the device provides significant benefits. At Brussels Airport, taxi times are already quite short (with the exception of 07R operations) and on top of that, engines also have to ‘warm up’ for a few minutes before they can be used for take-off. As a result, the benefit may be very limited.
The taxi bot is part of the Stargate project and will be tested for three months.
