DINOBUS is a fledging apron bus manufacturer that entered the aviation industry in 2022. Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, the company emerged as a combination of expertise between aircraft exterior washing specialist and Avia Solutions Group subsidiary Nordic Dino and city bus manufacturer Busnex, when Busnex identified a need for new airside and landside bus solutions.
According to Christopher Tabaraki, managing director of DINOBUS: “This partnership has been quite beneficial because each company has brought its strengths, with Busnex’s experience in city bus manufacturing and Nordic Dino’s knowledge of the aviation industry. This is how DINOBUS was created.”
Today, DINOBUS offers two apron bus models: the Dinorex, its first unit, and the Dinoveloci, its second, which the company launched in 2024. Both models have a passenger capacity of 110 and come equipped with a 210kW fast-charging lithium-ion battery – the main difference between the models being that the Dinorex has a height of 3.4m, while the Dinoveloci stands 3.8m tall.
Tabaraki tells Airside: “We are truly providing apron bus solutions that are reliable and high quality at a low price. The quality of our buses, I would say, is superior to that of our competitors’.”
Tabaraki says that, during product development, passenger capacity was one of the main challenges DINOBUS identified. “We noticed that ground handlers and airports required apron buses with maximum capacity to reduce the cost of having to make multiple trips to an aircraft when transporting passengers to remote stands.”
Similarly, vehicle height was an important factor when developing its first buses. According to Tabaraki, airports have varying requirements with regard to the height of vehicles that can operate on the tarmac – so in developing its first models, DINOBUS aimed to cater to different needs.
He explains: “The first year of the company was focused on R&D and making sure we were covering all the needs of ground handlers. We didn’t just want to launch an apron bus and say, ‘Here you go.’ We wanted to ensure that our customers, the airports and ground handlers, had their needs and requirements covered – because this is the most important part of the user experience.
“It was important for us to develop a solution that addresses operators’ problems because, generally, airport busing operations are not very profitable. The main reasons for this are high maintenance, spare parts costs and unreliable equipment, which means they must have bigger fleets in case one particular unit needs to be taken out of service.”
This interview is an excerpt from Airside International’s Spring 2025 print magazine edition. Click here to read the full article.
