SAFE TRAVELS
What are airlines doing to reassure passengers about flying amidst the pandemic?
How are airlines protecting us amid the pandemic?
There are many reasons people aren’t flying at the moment. Lockdowns and quarantines make it either difficult or close to impossible to get to many destinations, and airlines – and the travel industry as a whole – haven’t had much luck so far in persuading governments to relax these restrictions. It’s not all bad news: China, for example, saw domestic flights push past pre-Covid levels ahead of its National Day public holiday in October, according to aviation analytics company Cirium, but much of this was leisure travel.
Meanwhile, airlines have been using this period to introduce new protocols to reassure passengers that when travel does return, they can travel safely. From ramping up cleaning procedures to handing out hygiene kits, carriers are exploring ways to lure wary travellers back to the skies. Here we look at how new safety measures have fundamentally changed the experience of flying.
BOARDING
All airports are mandating that passengers should wear face coverings unless there is a medical reason for not doing so, and social distancing is in place throughout the terminals. Even so, travellers can often end up in close contact during boarding, whether they are lined up at the gate, waiting on an airbridge or standing in the aisle while other people put their bags into overhead lockers.
Pre-pandemic, a number of airlines were exploring ways to make the boarding process as speedy as possible. Now, many have traded efficiency for safety and are boarding small groups of passengers using one of the slowest ways to get people on to an aircraft: back-to-front boarding. This can sometimes involve boarding passengers in economy class before those in premium cabins. While US carriers Delta Air Lines and United have adopted back-to-front boarding, the former’s premium cabin customers can get on at their leisure at any time during general boarding, although it says boarding is limited to ten customers at a time. United is also allowing passengers in premium cabins to board at any time.
Virgin Atlantic is promising (along with Heathrow airport) that all of the seating at the gate will be sanitised, boarding will start from the back of the aircraft (with Upper Class passengers able to get on at any time), all customers will be asked to scan their own boarding pass and hold up their passport for inspection to minimise contact, and all Virgin staff will be wearing face masks.
From ramping up cleaning to handing out hygiene kits, airlines are exploring ways to lure passengers back
AIR QUALITY
One question passengers may have as they weigh up returning to the skies is: how clean is the air on board? As far as the airlines are concerned, the answer is “very” thanks to the highefficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters fitted on modern aircraft, a technology also used in most hospitals around the world.
The air on a plane is a mix of recirculated and outside air. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all commercial jet aircraft built after the late 1980s recirculate 10 to 50 per cent of the air in the cabin by mixing it with outside air. The recirculated air passes through a series of filters 20-30 times per hour.
In most newer aircraft, recycled air passes through HEPA filters, which capture 99.9 per cent of particles (including bacteria, fungi and larger viruses or virus clumps) measuring 0.1-0.3 micrometres in diameter. The virus that causes Covid-19 is about 0.125 micrometres (125 nanometers) in diameter, according to a study published in the Nature Public Health Emergency Collection, and so fits into the range captured by HEPA filters, although it is still unclear how effective the filters are in capturing the pathogen causing Covid-19.
Since the start of the pandemic, most major carriers have emphasised
the role of these filters in their fleets. American Airlines says that on its A320 and B737 families of aircraft, air is filtered through two HEPA filters located near the forward cargo compartment. Its B777s have eight of the filters, including two over each aisle near the middle of the aircraft cabin. Filters are changed regularly to ensure an uninterrupted flow of clean air into the cabin.
CLEANING
Most airlines have adopted rigorous new cleaning procedures, in many cases following guidance from government health departments. Videos published by a number of carriers show armrests, headrests, tray tables, washrooms and other surfaces that passengers come into contact with being cleaned with what they call “hospital-grade” disinfectant.
Some are going even further. In February, Singapore Airlines announced that it had begun using fogging machines to clean its aircraft operating inbound China flights, a procedure that involves spraying disinfectant on to cabin interiors. It takes about an hour and a half to fog an A380, and an hour for all other types of aircraft, the carrier said. On other routes, a SIA spokesperson said all aircraft were thoroughly cleaned before and after flights and that this “may include disinfection fogging procedures that are over and above regulatory requirements if necessary”. Carriers including American Airlines and United are also using fogging machines on select routes.
Electrostatic sprayers have been adopted by some airlines, particularly in the US. In May, Delta said it was sanitising every flight at each of its hubs using such sprayers, which offered a “safe and effective way to thoroughly clean an aircraft cabin from floor to ceiling”. The sprayers electrically charge and disperse liquid disinfectant in a fine mist that clings to surfaces such as seats, IFE screens, armrests, doors, washrooms and galleys. United and American have also added electrostatic sprayers to their cleaning regimes.
Others are even turning to ultraviolet lighting to disinfect aircraft, a technology that has been used in hospitals and in self-driving airport cleaning robots. In July, Jetblue claimed to be the first US airline to deploy ultraviolet light to zap germs, using a machine roughly the size of an aircraft drinks cart that shines UV-C light from the ceiling to the floor. A video from the carrier shows an employee working their way down the aisle with the machine, which has arms that extend over the top of the seats and sweep across the cabin. According to Jetblue, the device is “capable of significantly reducing certain viruses and bacteria”. Honeywell Aerospace, the company behind the technology, says that the lighting can traverse the entire cabin in less than ten minutes, making it more time-efficient than fogging.
Qatar Airways has bought six Honeywell UV units, with plans to acquire more, so that they can be used on all aircraft turnarounds at its Doha hub. They will be used “as an additional step after manual disinfection, to ensure the very highest standards of cleanliness”, the carrier said.