Narita Airport cleaning robots, photo credit: Shibuya246

We have talked about fun airport innovations before, but this is even more up our alley – it’s not only fun, but it also cleans! If Tokyo’s Narita Airport cleaning robots go on cleaning airport interiors, we will continue our work on the outside, using our tunnel systems and pop-up pits to keep tarmacs more organized and efficient.

Kitano kite-sailing yacht, photo credit: Luxist

Treehugger has put together a slide show cataloguing this summer’s greenest sailboats. Double hulls, recycled plastic bottles, solar panels, ethically-sourced lumbar, LED bulbs, even kites!

Click through for some fun, refreshing examples of environmentally responsible innovations.

Our Q2 Report is now available for download at the Cavotec web site. While the period has proved to be challenging for the global economy, the Cavotec Group has continued to maintain the positive course set in Q1.

Order Intake was up 32% on the same period last year, to EUR 34.6 million, and our Order Book again reached record highs to stand at EUR 78 million, up 75.3% on Q2 2009, and 6.6% stronger on Q1 this year.

We are confident that the positive trend started in Q1 will continue and lead to a stronger position for Cavotec as we approach 2011. 

Always on the look-out for novel approaches to doing things, we are rather drawn to Düsseldorf International’s – and seven other German airports’ – use of bees to monitor air quality, as recently reported in the New York Times.

Experts analyse samples from honey made by bees at hives around the airports twice a year. According to the Association of German Airports, the bee programme is not intended in to substitute conventional monitoring techniques, but maintains the initiative is readily understood by the public.

Samples taken from honey made by some 200,000 bees in June suggest air quality at the airports are well below official limits, in line with results reported ever since the scheme was first established in 2006. Local beekeepers tend these buzzing environmental watchdogs and give away the honey under the ‘Düsseldorf Natural’ label.

Düsseldorf International is no stranger to smart applications, as it uses a range of Cavotec ground support equipment (GSE), including three hangar-based pop-up pits to service aircraft. Our GSE equipment is designed to help operators make airports run more efficiently and thereby, become more sustainable. Work those busy bees might just bee keeping tabs on.

Photo credit: Solar Impulse

Solar Impulse – the aircraft powered entirely by solar energy – has successfully completed its maiden 26-hour day-night flight. This is a major milestone for the project, as it demonstrates the aircraft’s capacity to store solar power during the day and then use this energy to continue flying through the night.

The HB-SIA, piloted by André Borschberg, took-off from Payerne airfield in Switzerland at 6:51AM local time on July 7 and returned to Payerne on the stroke of 9AM this morning, July 8.

Cavotec once more congratulates the Solar Impulse team for challenging the limits of engineering and technology in pursuit of making our lives more sustainable.

In a series of projects worth a combined total of some EUR 3 million, we are to supply advanced ground support systems to several airports in France, Guinea, Luxembourg, Senegal’s new-build Diagne International Airport, and Doha International Airport in Qatar.

The largest of these orders is for a fuel hydrant system at the new Diagne International Airport, near the Senegalese capital Dakar. The order is a considerable achievement for the Cavotec Group, as this is the first fully integrated fuel hydrant package supplied by Cavotec Middle East in cooperation with partners. You can find full details of the project here.

The Diagne International Airport site is located 30 miles (45 kilometres) east of Dakar and replaces the existing Leopold Sedar Senghor Airport. The new airport is expected to handle some three million passengers a year.

We have also received a series of orders from several airports in France and Luxembourg. For example, we are supplying coils and crocodile units for Toulouse Blagnac Airport’s new terminal. At Nice Côte D’Azur Airport, Cavotec is supporting a retrofitting project with 11 coils for an under-bridge solution, and four coils for the airport’s A380 gate.

And in Guinea, West Africa, Cavotec has won a contract to supply extension hydrants at Conakry International Airport for global energy group Total. In Algeria, Cavotec is to supply AXA converters, hatch pits and Vdc cables and connectors, and electrical cabinets for testing and maintenance of rotary-wing aircraft.

Elsewhere, Cavotec and engineering group, Sinohydro-Gamuda-WCT Joint Venture, have signed an agreement for the delivery and installation of 18 hatch pits for a wash apron bay at Doha International Airport in Qatar. The units will connect equipment to clean aircraft at the maintenance area adjoining the Qatar Airways and Emiri hangars. The wash apron bay is designed for two A380 positions.