Air India SATS Airport Services Pvt. Ltd. (AISATS), a 50:50 joint venture between Air India Limited, and SATS Limited, a leading gateway services and food solutions provider in Asia, is launching an 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 computerised and self-contained system that will handle aircraft exterior cleaning process with great sophistication. With the help of this automated process, narrow body aircrafts can be cleaned in just 2 hours whereas traditionally it takes at least 5-6 hours, 18 persons and gallons of water to clean one aircraft thereby making cleaner aircrafts available in lesser time.
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 clean about 5-7 aircrafts in a day at IGI airport. AISATS has skilled personnel specially trained by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) instructor for this purpose.
Mike Chew, CEO, AISATS said, “We are proud to bring the nation’s first automated aircraft cleaning machine to the IGI airport. The introduction of Nordic Dino II and the recent investment in GSE holds testimony to our commitment to use technology to improve ground handling services to customer airlines at the IGI Airport and to contribute to a greener airport by using eco-friendly equipment.”
