Orlando, Fla. / October 21, 2014 – LEKTRO, Inc. announces the sale of its 4,500th electric towbarless tow vehicle to Jet Aviation Dubai. The milestone purchase establishes LEKTRO’s leadership in the aircraft towing industry as having sold more towbarless tractors than any other company in the world.
On opening day of NBAA 2014, LEKTRO’s president, Eric Paulson, handed the keys of the 4,500th LEKTRO tug, a model AP8850SDA, to Stefan Benz, Jet Aviation’s vice president of Jet Aviation MRO and FBO Services, EMEA & Asia.
“We are very excited to achieve this milestone,” said Paulson, “and we are honored to celebrate this alongside such a long standing partner as Jet Aviation.”
The AP8850SDA is LEKTRO’s current best selling model with a 120,000 lb capacity. It can handle the vast majority of business jets from the Lineage, G650 and Global Express, to Lears, Citations and turbo props.
“We are very pleased to celebrate with LEKTRO in the sale of their 4,500th LEKTRO tug and look forward to placing this unit into service with our other LEKTROs in Dubai,” stated Benz. “Jet Aviation has been using LEKTRO tugs since the early 1990s. We trust in their functionality, reliability and outstanding quality, and we appreciate their superb support.”
LEKTRO is an Oregon based company founded in 1945 that specializes in the design and manufacture of electric vehicles. LEKTRO founder Wilt Paulson invented the first towbarless tow vehicle in 1967, revolutionizing aircraft towing. Eric, his son, took over the company in 1985, overseeing the development of the larger, modern tugs LEKTRO builds now. LEKTRO has produced a wide variety of pioneering electric vehicles over its 69-year history, including the first electric mink feeder and the first electric golf cart, as well as forklifts and warehouse vehicles. A single family ownership has guaranteed uncompromising reliability and function in LEKTRO’s products as well as unsurpassed product support. “My father began producing electric vehicles well before electric vehicles were cool,” added Paulson.
