Aurrigo to trial its autonomous aviation technology with British Airways owner IAG

By Peter Davison

4 October 2023

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Aurrigo's Auto-DollyTug

Self-driving and autonomous vehicle specialist Aurrigo International announced a strategic partnership with British Airways owner International Airlines Group (IAG) on Tuesday.

The Coventry-based firm said the collaboration would see the deployment of a small fleet in H1 2025 following a four-month trial.

The trial programme and deployment of Aurrigo's vehicles - valued at £250,000 - will involve the Auto-DollyTug baggage vehicle, the Auto-Cargo air-freight vehicle and Aurrigo's Auto-Sim aviation operations simulation software.

David Keene, CEO of Aurrigo, said: "This partnership with one of the world's largest airline groups is a great endorsement of the capabilities of our technology and the potential of automation to improve efficiencies and solve the challenges facing modern aviation."

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Jorge Saco, Chief Information, Procurement, Services, and Innovation Officer at IAG, added: "IAG is dedicated to supporting innovation which can transform aviation efficiencies and improve ground operations. Automation at airports is a key focus for us and having assessed our options we are pleased to be working with Aurrigo.

"We first trialled the prototype Auto-Dolly in 2019 and after revisiting it post-Covid, we were impressed by how far their vehicle capabilities have progressed. We look forward to this technology helping to build our leadership position in aviation automation."

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.