Emirates plans autonomous vehicles at airports

Emirates airline intends developing a driverless vehicle fleet, initially for cargo carrying.

It’s likely this will be trialled at Dubai international airport, operating within the airport boundary.

Using autonomous vehicles for logistics and ground support would free up people for other tasks, The National UAE edition reports.

The driverless vehicles could also be used to ferry passengers between terminals and parked planes.

Emirates’ executive vice president and chief operations officer Adel Al Redha explained the airline’s autonomous vehicle plans during a top-level visit to the Emirates lab at Dubai Future Accelerators in Emirates Tower.

Developing autonomous vehicles to meet the specialised mobility needs of airport airside operations, Al Redha says it should use 100% solar or other electrical energy and deliver a 50% improvement in operational efficiency.

Al Redha says Emirates’ initiatives reflect Dubai ruler and vice-president Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid’s vision to use artificial intelligence to enhance the customer experience across Dubai’s airports.

Dubai-based chief analyst at StrategicAero Research Saj Ahmad says Emirates will most likely use the autonomous vehicles to transport cargo.

“Emirates’ huge ground fleet operations footprint means that they can experiment on a smaller scale with these autonomous devices before a more progressive roll out to iron out kinks in the system,” Ahmad says.