Scania to supply 3,000 engines for airport ground support vehicles

Scania has signed an agreement to deliver up to 3,000 Tier 4i emission-compliant engines for aircraft dispatch towing and pushback vehicles.

Designed and developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the pushback tractor TaxiBot will be manufactured by TLD in France, an airport ground support equipment specialist.

The pushback tractors will be available in narrow and wide versions for the Airbus A320 and A380 series respectively, both powered by industrial engines supplied by Scania. The narrow version of the TaxiBot Narrow Body is powered by two 9-liter engines developing 294 kW each (394 HP).
The TaxiBot Wide Body will use two 16-liter V8 engines developing 566 KW (759 HP) each. The engines comply with the Tier 4i emission legislation. TLD chose engines from Scania for their compact and comprehensive modular design, which prepares them for future emission legislation developments.

The TaxiBot tractors will be used to move aeroplanes between gate and runway. This operation saves jet fuel and reduces greenhouse gas and noise emissions as the aeroplanes will not have to start their engines until minutes before take-off. The development of the TaxiBot is a joint venture between IAI and Airbus, and has a potential order volume of 1,500 TaxiBots from TLD until the year 2022.