More of the buses that take passengers out to planes at Rome are going electric. dnata is adding four fully electric buses at Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO), and they are expected to enter service by mid-November.
The buses
- Model: the buses are VEGA models from airport bus maker Cobus, designed for fully electric operation on the apron. dnata says it will be the first ground handler to deploy the model.
- Job: they will carry passengers between terminals and aircraft. AVIOmedia explains that these buses are used when an aircraft is parked at a stand not served directly by a boarding bridge (translated from Italian).
- Fleet: dnata's Fiumicino passenger bus fleet is 40 buses, 23 of them electric. AVIOmedia notes that this means more than half of the buses used for the service run on batteries.
- Features: dnata says the buses carry more passengers than standard airport buses and have improved climate control.
The wider investment
dnata says it has invested more than €30 million in modernising its Italian fleet since 2024. The money covered more than 550 ground support equipment units across Rome Fiumicino, Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate, including baggage tractors, passenger steps, belt loaders, pushback tractors and buses. In total, dnata operates more than 1,000 motorised ground support units in Italy, and over 60% of them are electric.
«These new electric buses will help us deliver a better service for our airline customers and passengers, while giving our people safer, more capable equipment to work with,» said Alberto Morosi, CEO of dnata Airport Operations Italy.