Mallaghan, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of airport ground support equipment, in conjunction with GomesTrucks, has been appointed by Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to develop its first mobile Airside Training Unit.

The bespoke ‘Aviobridge’ training unit is the first of its kind for the Dutch hub and will facilitate training for operational teams with passenger bridges and aircraft door opening procedures.

Owen McKenna, Sales Director at Mallaghan, said:

“The team at Schiphol had very specific requirements and we worked very closely to modify our existing Airside Training Unit product to cater to these exact needs.

“The flexibility of our own team coupled with our design and manufacturing expertise was crucial to ensuring we not only understood the complex requirements but developed a product that addressed them and ultimately provides a better ground staff training solution for Schiphol.

“At Mallaghan we pride ourselves on innovation and this really drove the project through the design, development and build stages. A virtual pre-delivery inspection was then facilitated to ensure the team was happy for the product to leave our Headquarters in Dungannon.”

The one-of-a-kind Airside Training unit with its fully electric zero-emissions superstructure can be driven on public roads and features fully operational L1 Aircraft doors to train in B737 and 777 door opening procedures.

The contoured walls of the unit replicate the fuselage of B737 and 777 to enable ground staff to properly connect passenger airbridges in training.

Mr McKenna continued:

“We would also like to thank GomesTrucks for facilitating this project, the great cooperation throughout the project and the supply of the chassis.

“This was a significant investment for Schiphol, and we are confident the product will have a very positive impact on the airside training of their teams.

“This is our first project with Schiphol and it was a pleasure to work with such a dedicated, experienced team and we very much look forward to continuing our partnership in the future.”

The Airside Training Unit was handed over to Schiphol at the end of April, with representatives from Mallaghan and GomesTrucks facilitating in-depth training with the relevant teams.