Roadmap for fully emission-free aprons

Are we better off with diesel or electric drives in the apron areas? The “scale up!” project, carried out by the research institute Öko-Institut e. v. in partnership with Losch Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH and Flughafen Stuttgart GmbH, provides clear answers: the electric version is the better option in nearly all investigated efficiency categories. The “scale up!” Project was started in 2016 and completed in July 2020.

Emission-free handling: Losch started switching its fleet of apron transport vehicles to electric vehicles as early as 2014. Scientists of the Öko Institut then researched the operating behaviour of the electric vehicle fleet of Losch in the project period between 2016 and 2020. And it was already quite impressive: 14 electrically driven tugs for transportation of luggage trolleys, passenger staircases and ground power units, electric conveyor belts for loading and unloading of baggage, and electric StreetScooters for aircraft cabin cleaning. Öko Institut took a closer look at more aspects. How do electric and diesel vehicles behave in terms of economy, availability, reliability, technical suitability, and user acceptance in everyday use? After all, the electric transformation was not just meant to be an isolated showcase, but to deliver tangible arguments for its practicality in the highly demanding area of apron operation, as well. And it did. The “scale up!” project conclusion: Electric drives clearly beat diesel drives.

After concluding the study, the Öko Institut goes the extra mile: based on Losch data and other materials, the experts developed a roadmap for achieving 100% emission-free apron mobility by as early as 2035 – recommendations on actions, which the Öko Institut would indeed like to see being adopted by other national and international airports as well. In this way, “scale up!” should be used as a multiplying factor for further airports and handling companies. “Ecology will become an ever more important factor in future, also and predominantly in the aviation industry. I think that is right, and that is why we have been putting great emphasis on electric mobility for many years. The less carbon dioxide, the better”, states Marc Losch, Managing Director of Losch Airport Service.

You will find detailed results of this project in the following publications:
Working Paper 01/2019
Working Paper 02/2020

Losch Airport Service saves up to 60% energy at Stuttgart airport by using an electric vehicle fleet

Turning point in the apron areas of Stuttgart airport: Losch Airport Service carries out almost 100% of all handling jobs in an emission-free way. The environmental research institute Öko-Institut e.V. has coached this transformation and calculated energy savings for individual vehicles of up to 60 percent. 

This innovative service provider is now using 14 electrically driven tugs for transportation of luggage trolleys, passenger staircases and ground power units, the luggage is loaded and unloaded with the help of electric conveyors, and electric StreetScooters are used for aircraft cabin cleaning. With this vehicle fleet, Losch Airport Service sets the benchmark on a Federal scale, too. 

Electromobility significantly simplifies everyday work

The Losch employees also welcome this transition towards an electric vehicle fleet. According to reports of Öko-Institut, the low noise exposure and the significant reduction of emissions are making everyday work significantly easier. 

The route towards emission-free handling services started for Losch as early as in 2014, when the enterprise used an electric tug, for the first time. The last hybrid tug was put out of service in 2018. Without exception, Losch now moves all luggage trolleys, passenger staircases and ground power units, which are required as a terrestrial power supply for the aircrafts, with its 14 electric tugs. 

From trial to daily practice

Support for this ambitious project of Losch – aiming for an entirely emission-free aircraft handling – came from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The ministerial funding project, which the family business Losch carries out in cooperation with Stuttgart airport and Öko-Institut, is called “Scale-up”. Scale-up recently enabled Losch to extend their vehicle fleet with four electric tugs and, at the same time to address a new project: the replacement of Diesel-driven conveyor belts. The objective of the trial at Stuttgart airport is to jointly gain knowledge and to share it among all partners. Two competitors have bundled their knowledge and experience in terms of electromobility. That’s a first in Germany. But it also goes in line with the objective of this project: After a comprehensive strategy development with respect to economic and ecological consequences, the partners want to initiate a dialogue with other airports for the purpose of communicating this knowledge and discussing opportunities of its transfer.  

Impressively low carbon footprint

The research institute Öko-Institut demonstrates in an interim result of its report, that the electric apron buses of Stuttgart airport already cause about a quarter, and the electric tugs in the apron areas about a fifth less CO₂ emissions, compared with their respective diesel counterparts. These figures were established using the approach of the German average mix for power generation over the entire life cycle (including manufacture and disposal). Furthermore, the institute calculated that the apron fleet electrification within the scope of the aforementioned project only increases the overall power demand by a one-digit percentage. 

The institute expects that these benefits will further increase in the course of the progressing decarbonisation of the public power system. If the current location mix for Stuttgart airport is assumed, greenhouse gas emissions are already today about one lower with electrically operated vehicles than with comparable diesel vehicles. For 2019, Losch expects another significant reduction of CO2 emissions: the conveyor belts, which have only been replaced in the second half of 2018, will then also come into effect in its environmental balance.

Handling completely free from emissions 

But apart from the Scale-up project, Losch makes the transition towards electric vehicles in other areas too. The company has, for instance, completely abandoned the use of petrol or diesel engines for driving their cabin cleaning personnel to the aircrafts and back to the building. The employees use a total of five StreetScooters to make their way to the aircrafts of Losch clients like Tuifly, Eurowings or Condor. StreetScooters are fully electric small vans, which are manufactured by a subsidiary of Deutsche Post. Two Nissan eNV200 complete the electric vehicle fleet for the apron areas. 

“Handling completely free from emissions is no longer a vision for the future. I’m, happy that we could make a not insignificant contribution towards the big objective “Fairport Stuttgart” with this project. I would also like other service providers to join the initiative towards electric vehicles. It is an exciting journey towards this goal, which is not always easy, but every eco-friendly metre counts for us: for our employees at the aprons, for the environment, and for the expertise in our company,” summarised Marc Losch. 

The full publication of the Eco-Institute can be found at:

https://www.oeko.de/fileadmin/oekodoc/WP-scale-up.pdf

Stuttgart airport once again counts on an experienced partner

LOSCH Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH has once again prevailed in an EU-wide bidding process and obtained the ground handling service licence for the Stuttgart airport apron areas. This licence is awarded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport for the duration of seven years and is effective from June 2017. It is already the third ground handling licence in a row for this experienced Stuttgart family enterprise.

“It is a valuable recognition of our daily work that we were confirmed as an experienced and reliable employer at Stuttgart airport for another seven years. We are happy about the trust that the Ministry of Transport, the FSG airport company and their works council put in our company. We are glad about the trust of our customers, who have voted for us in the User Committee,” said Marc Losch, the managing director of LOSCH Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH. “In particular, we are thrilled that we can offer our employees safe jobs at our headquarters in Stuttgart for the future. My special thanks and my respect goes to them, because it’s our employees who commit themselves for our customers day after day and render excellent services,” said Mr. Losch.

Upon receiving the new licence, LOSCH Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH will expand their range of services at Stuttgart airport: With the new “Flight Operations” and “Passenger Services” business areas, it will offer complete handling consisting of both, passage and apron services, in future.

Stuttgart airport once again counts on an experienced partner

LOSCH Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH has once again prevailed in an EU-wide bidding process and obtained the ground handling service licence for the Stuttgart airport apron areas. This licence is awarded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport for the duration of seven years and is effective from June 2017. It is already the third ground handling licence in a row for this experienced Stuttgart family enterprise.

“It is a valuable recognition of our daily work that we were confirmed as an experienced and reliable employer at Stuttgart airport for another seven years. We are happy about the trust that the Ministry of Transport, the FSG airport company and their works council put in our company. We are glad about the trust of our customers, who have voted for us in the User Committee,” said Marc Losch, the managing director of LOSCH Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH. “In particular, we are thrilled that we can offer our employees safe jobs at our headquarters in Stuttgart for the future. My special thanks and my respect goes to them, because it’s our employees who commit themselves for our customers day after day and render excellent services,” said Mr. Losch.

Upon receiving the new licence, LOSCH Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH will expand their range of services at Stuttgart airport: With the new “Flight Operations” and “Passenger Services” business areas, it will offer complete handling consisting of both, passage and apron services, in future.

Frank Riedel appointed new managing director

From January 2017, Frank Riedel from Losch Airport Service was appointed new managing director of WISAG LOSCH Passage Service at Cologne/Bonn airport, alongside Roland Ückert from Wisag Aviation Service. He replaces Ingo Lau, who fulfils the role of managing director at Airlink Passage Service Berlin.

With Frank Riedel, WISAG LOSCH Passage Service gains an experienced specialist. Mr. Riedel has been working in the area of ground handling services at various airports for 16 years; as Losch Airport Service’s Head of Station at Stuttgart airport since 2001, and as a managing director of Losch Airport Service Allgäu GmbH at Memmingen airport since 2012. “Since the launch of WISAG LOSCH Passage Service in October 2016, we are experiencing a very positive development. What we are especially glad about is the fact that we further stabilised our operations department thanks to the engagement of our 50 employees. They form a great team, and it’s not only us as the employer who is very happy with their performance, but our client and Cologne/Bonn airport as well,” said Mr. Riedel.

WISAG LOSCH Passage Service at the Cologne/Bonn location renders passage services for approximately 7,000 flights annually for the Irish airline Ryanair. Services comprise of air passenger service before departure, during transit and after arrival, including ticket sale, check-in, boarding und baggage tracing.

WISAG LOSCH takes over passage services for Ryanair

From 1st October, WISAG LOSCH Passage Service now also provides its services at the Cologne/Bonn airport location and takes over passenger handling for approximately 7,000 Ryanair flights per year.

In connection with the associated company Service2fly, LOSCH Airport Service has been handling flights of the Irish airline at Weeze airport since as far back as 2005 and is an experienced service partner for Ryanair. Together with Wisag Aviation Service, LOSCH now offers services that include the care for air passengers before departure, in transit and after landing at the Cologne/Bonn airport location under the newly established company name WISAG LOSCH Passage Service. This includes ticket sale, check-in, boarding and baggage tracing. The new WISAG LOSCH team starts with 50 employees. “Ryanair is a long-standing partner of ours, and we are happy to offer our services at Cologne/Bonn airport now as well,” said Ingo Lau, who, together with Roland Ückert from Wisag Aviation Service, has taken over the business management of WISAG LOSCH Passage Service.

LOSCH expands emission-free handling at Stuttgart airport

LOSCH Airport Service cooperates with Flughafen Stuttgart GmbH (FSG) in an innovation project scale-up aimed at an environmentally friendly aircraft handling thanks to electromobility. This joined field trial will answer important questions, amongst others about the technological maturity and the operating behaviour of electric devices, over the coming three years. Renowned Öko-Institut e.V., which supports the practical application with scientific advice, also joined the programme.

“Even today, our environmentally friendly drive technology in the apron areas of Stuttgart airport is considered exemplary throughout Germany. Thanks to scale-up, our company gets a good step closer to our target, to reach a completely emission-free handling process“, commented Marc Losch, the managing director of LOSCH Airport Service. Scale-up is promoted by the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Construction and Nuclear Safety (“BMUB”). Overall costs of this project amount to EUR 4.5 million, and the Federal Ministry promotes this project consortium with funding of EUR 1.94 million.

With LOSCH and FSG, two competitors have joined forces in order to bundle their knowledge and experience in terms of electromobility – this is unique in Germany. Scale-up should not remain an exotic one-off project, but rather serve as an example for this industry. LOSCH and FSG want to make all recommendations for actions and research results available to the public, which can, in this way, be transferred to other airports worldwide.

E-mobility from scratch


Electric motors are nothing new for LOSCH Airport Service. The company already started converting its own vehicle and equipment fleet a few years ago towards environmentally compatible propulsion technologies. So called aircraft tugs are, for instance, already electrically driven. “An electric device has completely different requirements than a petrol engine vehicle. Which battery is the better one? How do you make your employees aware of partially present high voltages? How do you integrate charging times into the cycle of take-offs and landings? In this area, we’ve gathered a lot of experience in recent years, and certainly also learnt the hard way sometimes,” says Max Losch, who as an engineer of the internal technological expert company LOSCH Airport Equipment GmbH, has essentially initiated and pushed forward this project. For Dr. Losch, the almost 80 year old inventor, this is an affair of the heart: “Our e-mobility expertise was learnt from scratch and does not follow any trend. And that makes it so valuable not least for our competitor and scale-up partner company FSG.” In connection with the scale-up project, LOSCH now also converts its conveyor belts for luggage, cargo and mail into electrically driven devices. Twelve devices will be newly purchased. The company expects purchase costs of 68,100 Euro per conveyor belt.

Press contact: Sina Salzer, Phone: +49 (0)711 990 88 34,
email: sina.salzer@loschairportservice.de

Losch Airport Service Stuttgart – ramp handling: Austrian Airlines as a new customer

Losch Airport Service Stuttgart has taken over the handling for Austrian Airlines at Stuttgart airport with effect of 1st September 2014. With up to 5 flights per day and about 1,600 flights per year, this Star Alliance carrier connects Stuttgart with the Austrian airports Vienna, Salzburg and Graz. This contract was concluded for a period of three years. The Losch Airport Service team is happy that Austrian Airlines trusts our company in terms of quality and performance.

Losch Airport Service Stuttgart as well as the dbb/komba and ver.di unions jointly consented to a new company wage agreement

Attractive remuneration, higher performance and preservation of competitiveness

Stuttgart – Losch Airport Service Stuttgart as well as the dbb/komba and ver.di unions have jointly consented to a new company wage agreement on 7th August 2014, which retrospectively applies from 1. July 2014 and only expires on 31.12.2017. “I don’t know of any wage agreement in our industry, which was cooperatively negotiated with several unions and identically agreed. The duration of 3.5 years is also unusually long and speaks for the sustainability of this multilateral agreement. With the new company wage agreement, we have jointly achieved a lot for our employees,” says Marc Losch, the managing director of Losch Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH.

And what is, on top of that, especially attractive for the employees: the performance bonus model remains in place. The Losch employees can increase their wage by another 10 to 20 percent in addition to the increased basic wage. “That our unique wage model was integrated into the company wage agreement, happened upon the express desire of our employees,” reported Losch. Additionally, the contract specifies, that the basic wage per hour should amount to Euro 10.00 for the lowest wage group at the end of the duration. Wage increases of 5.5% over the company wage agreement duration are agreed, plus a Sunday bonus and the transformation of part-time into full-time contracts of 162 hours per month, as well as the increase of holidays towards up to 30 per year, in stages. The introduction of an employer funded company pension in stages – an additional pension scheme for the employees – was also agreed.

With the new company wage agreement, Losch Airport Service Stuttgart secures its competitiveness and the approximately 130 jobs at Stuttgart airport for the long term. “We owe this success to the atmosphere of mutual respect, in which we were able to negotiate with the union representatives and our employees,” according to Losch, who particularly emphasises the constructive cooperation with chief negotiators Rudolf Hausmann from ver.di and Andreas Hemsing from dbb/komba as well as with the employees in the bargaining committee. “For Losch Airport Service Stuttgart, the success of our company is closely connected with our employees’ satisfaction and our competitiveness,” says Marc Losch, “and by all of us, including the unions, pulling together, we have achieved a lot.”

Losch Airport Service receives “Condor Operational Excellence Award 2010”

On 29.06.2010, Loch Airport Service Stuttgart GmbH was awarded with the “Condor Operational Excellence Award 2010” for „Best On Time Performance Germany“. Werner Losch happily accepted this award.

Losch Airport Service is, together with their partner company Swissport, jointly awarded with the ground handling licence for Munich airport.

Losch Airport Service, the locally operating airport service company, is happy about being awarded with the ground handling licence at Munich airport. Together with their joint venture partner Swissport International, the globally leading aviation services company, Losch Airport Service was able to prevail against numerous renowned competitors in this official tender. The seven-year ground handling licence authorises Swissport/Losch to operate in the apron areas (to provide so-called ramp services). The start of operations is scheduled for 1st March 2010.