Safety on a plane [merged thread]
 

Here’s how coronavirus spreads on a plane—and the safest place to sit - fascinating article published by National Geographic:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...ds-on-a-plane/

Quick summary: don't sit near an infected person. ;)

Nothing particularly new discovered here, as far as I can tell.

Here's an article on FT from two years ago:
https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/s...-flights.html/

I put National Geographic in the same category as Playboy. Glossy eye catching photos with stories written to entice a predetermined audience and usually missing critical facts. But they are really nice photos!.

Has anyone actually witnessed a plane being sanitized? >>> Staying safe on a plane
 

All the airlines are claiming they're sanitizing planes and sending B-roll to news stations, but has anyone actually seen it being done in person on a routine flight?

.....

I'm curious about the details. Do they wipe down every single seat?

They should have "properly" cleaned the planes prior to COVID-19, IMO.
All they REALLY ought to have done is reiterate to the cleaning companies and crew: do your job properly from now on.

I reckon, in addition to the "fuel surcharge", the "September 11 security fee", "APHIS fee", etc. etc., they'll now likely also impose a "COVID-19 cleaning surcharge" for any tickets sold in the future. :rolleyes:

.....

It sounds thorough. Is this being done between each flight or just the end of the day?

Take the plane out of service for 23 days or so, let no one on it, and then at least this virus and some others will no longer be on the plane in any sort of readily communicable way. That would result in sterilization of planes for this and more. But that is an expensive way of dealing with a big plane whose monthly lease cost may be around a million dollars.

The cash strapped airlines are doing much cheaper things like use cleansing solvents to wipe down surfaces and maybe a bit more than that. I still wouldn’t count on everything possible to be sterilized. People aren’t all that efficient and consistent when manually cleaning things without powered means.

What could be done feasibly is high-intensity UV-C lamps all over the plane, and the whole plane is nuked in a matter of minutes. You'd have to put security measures in place to ensure they couldn't be turned on with people inside.

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First of all, Thank you for you hard work in these difficult times. I'm glad to read that special attention is being paid to seat belt latches and air vents. Are cabin air filters being changed on a more frequent basis as well?

Does this cleaning include:

• Tray tables (Both sides of the tray)
• Touch screens
• Head and arm rests
• Overhead bin latches

Safety of Airline Metal Cutlery
 

Received an email from Qatar on how they disinfect the aircraft and associated materials used inflight for our safety in light of the virus outbreak.Came across this section :

All meal service utensils and cutlery are washed with detergents and rinsed with demineralized fresh water at temperatures that kill pathogenic bacteria. All the sanitized equipment are handled by staff with wearing hygienic disposable gloves, while cutlery is individually re-packed.

However, I do recall some airlines, such as Singapore, using polishing machines to "clean" their metal cutlery and not actually using detergent or hot water. Can virus transmission happen as polishing isn't proper disinfection?