Airport Cleaning Robot Fleet Lifts Uptime From 68% to 94%

A fleet that spent a third of its time out of service

Across three terminals, the airport ran 23 autonomous robots: 15 UVC disinfection units, six floor scrubbers and two baggage transport units. In the early months of the program, fleet uptime sat at about 68 percent. A robot waiting on a repair is not cleaning, and that gap shows up in every shift plan, every terminal walk and every overnight schedule.

The operator's figures put the cost of each robot operating hour at $31.20 under reactive maintenance. Adding machines would have raised the bill without fixing the availability problem. The operator's question was how to get more hours out of the robots it already had.

• Fleet uptime of about 68 percent before the maintenance overhaul
• Reactive repairs driving the cost per robot operating hour to $31.20
• A mixed fleet of disinfection, scrubbing and transport units to keep running

Digitize the assets, train the crew, then schedule the work

The airport moved through three phases. From January to September 2025 the fleet ran on its existing routines, which gave the operator a baseline to measure against. From October to December 2025, a computerized maintenance management system, or CMMS, was rolled out, covering asset digitization, staff training and baseline data collection.

From January 2026 the operation ran in its optimized form. Scrubber brushes were replaced when wear reached 65 percent, and service visits were booked into the 2 to 6 AM window, when the terminals were quietest and the robots were least needed on the floor. Parts carrying costs fell 34 percent over the program.

• Record every robot as a maintenance asset and capture baseline performance
• Train staff on the CMMS workflow before the optimized phase begins
• Replace autonomous scrubber brushes when wear reaches 65 percent
• Book service visits in the 2 to 6 AM window to protect cleaning hours
• Track parts carrying costs alongside uptime, not after it

Uptime up 26 points and hours returned to the floor

By the optimized phase, fleet uptime stood at 94 percent, up from 68 percent. The operator's dashboard showed 94.2 percent, which it presented as 26.2 points above the pre-CMMS level. The operator reports that this lift added 2,840 robot operating hours.

The gain held across the building. Terminal 1, with eight robots, ran at 96 percent. Terminal 2, with ten robots, reached 93 percent. Terminal 3, with five robots, reached 94 percent. Unplanned repairs fell 89 percent in the optimized phase.

Cost moved in the same direction. The operator reports cost per robot operating hour of $18.30, against $31.20 under reactive maintenance, and an annual maintenance cost reduction of $427K. The payback period was reported at 17.5 months, against 31 months projected. Read these as one operator's results from one deployment, not as a promised outcome.

What this means for a cleaning program that must hold all year

Service Robot Co. is an OEM neutral commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We select the right robots across manufacturers, then finance, deploy, integrate, train and service every unit through a nationwide US engineer network. One vendor covers the full lifecycle, so the people who choose the machines are also the people who keep them on the floor.

The airport's lesson fits that model. Uptime depends on who plans the service calls, which parts are on hand, and when technicians can reach the machines. Those decisions belong in the site assessment and the go live plan, not after the first breakdown. We lease robots on a three year lease with one fixed payment quoted after a site assessment, so a facility manager can model the full operating year before committing to a robot leasing for business program.