How Do Airlines Clean and Disinfect Their Planes?

Hello and Welcome back. Today is something very different. We're going to do how airlines cleaning their plane and disinfect their plane. These are the protective suits we're going to put on Anthony yeah I'm going to follow you, see how you do this. - Yes, it's an essential part of uh everyone's safety to ensure that the So we need to cover our heads as well. - Uh yes. Crimps around ya nose to stop up the effects of suppurativa, make sure nothing can go within your breathing area. - And also wearing these glasses. - Yeah. Just for the guys uh uhdisinfecting the aircraft, so if there are any splashes, it can't enter into your eyes. Once the team is on board we're ready to go. - Great. - Final piece Sam, we just have the foot protectors. - Foot protectors, yeah. - There ya go. 

Okay, Sam let me just speak to you through some of the products we've got here. Um, Ishan is topping up um the sprayer, which we use basically for the um the soft furnishings the seat covers, um it's far more effective. Uh, this is a smaller but again another compaction. Um in all of these is an uh uh product called Bactroban. Um, which kills the Coronavirus. These are hand filled also with Bactroban. These are used for the hard furnishings, such as side wall panels, galleys uh and they're applied by disposable uh towels here. - Oh to wipe it on the surface. - Correct. - Is see. - Uh it's far more effective than just spraying. - Yeah. - Once we've used all this, all of this equipment, will then go in a biohazard bag, where it's then uh sent for incineration. Uh, you've got skin exposure there so that needs to be completely covered. Thank you. Okay so what and Paul, my supervisor, are doing, we're checking that all of the people here that we provided to my staff is on correctly. Everything's covered, no skin exposure around the hands where they'll be applying disinfection. Uh as you can see the aircraft is already cleaned, so we will now start the disinfecting process, which we'll start from the rear. Uh, how we apply this is top to bottom, back to front. So we will proceed to the uh rear galley. 

Okay, Sam as you can see a member of my team here is cleaning the rear galley. He's using the spray with the disposable um cloth because it's far more effective on hard surfaces. - Quite a hard job. I can imagine how big the whole airplane, imagine wipe off every corner of the plane to make sure it's all disinfected. - And that is why Etihad uses the same teams for disinfecting. Uh, they know exactly what they've got to do, how long it takes, um so these are experienced guys that are doing it. This housing here Sam, this is where the catering put all their carts, so all of your food is stored within here. Once it's emptied of the catering carts, my guys come in here. Start spraying. And they'll spray all over the side panels, on the floor.  Okay, Sam, so what you've seen, you've seen the guys working on both sides of the aircraft They used the uh pump-action spray to spray the Bacoban into the hat rack, um where the passengers store their luggage so that now is disinfected Okay once the guys have completed the disinfection of the uh the hat racks, we now concentrate on focus on the seating area. Um, which consists of a visual display screen and the tray table. This needs to be 100% disinfected and 100% clean and presentable to the Etihad standard for the customer on board. When we clean any area of the cabin, we use um a disposable cloth and Bacoban itself. The reason that we do this in conjunction with the fogging is that agitates anything that might be on a hard surface. Um, so that makes sure that whatever that was on there is 100% disinfectant and gone. Bactroban is both a cleaner and a disinfectant. Um, it's highly effective against all germs, viruses, um, and bacteria. 

It's a great cleaning agent and it's also excellent for disinfecting. We use it in the seating area, we use it in the uh sidewall panels, we use it in the lavatory, we use it in the galleys, the crew rest, the flight deck. - This seat here the covers were taken off. 'cause I can see clearly it's different to the other seats. What's going on here? - Well Sam on arrival my team come and inspect the cabin because it has to meet the guidelines set out by Etihad Airways. Um if they come on board after everyone's disembarked, and they see a seat cover that might be stained, red wine or coffee, uh they remove it. They replace it with a brand new um seat cover that's cleaned and the old one will be sent be laundered. - Is there anything different you would do in cleaning business class? - Uh Sam no the disinfection from the aircraft is the same in business as it is in the economy. Um, the safety of the passengers irrespective of what cabin therein, is exactly the sameThe earlier flights to lots of countries now have been identified as highrisk for Coronavirus. So is there any different cleaning procedure you perform because those are high-risk countries? - Uh yes indeed yeah. Any aircraft coming from a high-risk area, such as China, or if there's a reported suspected case onboard, we enhance the cleaning from any other clean which includes uh disinfection respective of the schedule. The time is given to me to make this aircraft safe and clean for the next guests. 

Sam let's go to the cargo hold we need to disinfect, that's where the guest's baggage is stored. The cargo holds are just as important as the cabin, um because there's an area for possible infection. So what we do once um the aircraft has been emptied, we go into there we use the fogging machine and also the handhelds and we clean and disinfect the whole of the um cargo holds. Now that's on a wide-bodied and also on a narrow body. The reason we do this is that the passengers' baggage is held within their areas, so we need to ensure that there's no contamination. Let's talk about the air supply, so modern jet airlines all have a very high airflow rate, so there are 20 or 30 air changes per hour, compared to let's say two or three in a typical air-conditioned building. About 50% fresh air from outside and the other 50% goes through uh HEPA filters, high efficiency particularly air filters. Of the same sort that we use in operating theatres and able to exclude 99.97% or better of viruses or bacteria. 

They usually do much better than that in fact. So the air supply is very clean. - Well after 90 minutes of deep cleaning and disinfecting the plane, now the planes ready for the next departure. As you can see behind, they are doing the final touches and dressing up the plane. Well, thank you so much, Anthony, for showing me the process. That lots of hard work has been put behind making sure the flights the plane is safe and healthy. Thank you so much. - It's our pleasure sir.