Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and easyJet have started operational deployment of engine-free taxiing using the TaxiBot system on selected Airbus aircraft. The semi-robotic, hybrid towing vehicle attaches to the nose gear and tows the aircraft between the gate and the runway, allowing the main engines to remain off during most of the taxi phase.
This deployment follows a sustainable taxiing pilot launched at Schiphol in spring 2020, which involved Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 family aircraft and demonstrated substantial fuel and emissions savings during ground operations. The trials showed that using TaxiBot can reduce fuel use during taxi by about half on average, with potential savings of up to 85% on longer taxi routes, depending on distance and operational conditions.
Taxiing at Schiphol currently takes around 14 minutes on departure and 9 minutes on arrival, making ground movements a significant contributor to local CO₂, NOx and ultrafine particle emissions, as well as ground noise. The new TaxiBot operations fit into Schiphol’s broader strategy to decarbonize airport operations and make sustainable taxiing standard procedure by 2030. Scaling up will require further adaptation of infrastructure, procedures and technology, but the airport considers the initial results sufficiently mature to move from testing to targeted operational use with easyJet.