Does Southwest actually sanitize their planes?
 

The Coronavirus travel advisory on their website says "Each aircraft is tidied between flights and subsequently undergoes a comprehensive program every night that includes cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting the aircraft cabin and lavatories.​​​​​"
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I've never known any airline to do more than trash pickup each night. Do they actually sanitize planes each night and how do they do it?

I suspect any US airlines saying "we sanitize our planes"
really means "we mop the lav and galley floor with a cleaner that contains* sanitizer"

(*when diluted properly by each of 100+ stations employing overnight contractors who may further subcontract the work to the lowest bidder).

Southwest is much better than some, and they have more opportunity timewise since their planes are parked overnight due to no redeye flights.

The ONLY planes getting a true hospital grade sanitation are the airlines flying back from Covid19 evacuation flights overseas. From what I read on airliners.net it takes 12-24 hours and workers have lots of protective equipment.

Even if it is done overnight, unless one is on the first flight of the day, the aircraft are not cleaned in any meaningful way across the day.

sort of, say, how NYC is "sanitizing their public transit system every 72 hours" Great for first rider every 3 days, if they ride alone with no other passengers.

It could be operation room clean, but once you load 150 people onboard, all bets are off.

As to cleaning... everything I read says it gets spread via "droplets" from people sneezing, etc. Have not seen any reports of extended life on tray table, etc.

This thread is literally making me itch.

SW does not sanitize their planes between flights...they just stated that.

I flew Alaska today on a connecting flight and was impressed to see them with a spray bottle of something wiping down every table and arm rest between each flight.

I think the question was do they do it at all.

Looks like they do now.

As has been mentioned earlier though, unless they sanitize between flights (which they do not), it's really not going to help all that much.

They mop up the urine from the lavatory. That is all that I expect that they do. Maybe they damp wipe the basin.

So true.

What happens if you put 150 people off the street in the just cleaned Operating Room?

Spoiler Alert - no longer very clean - especially once a couple of people cough.

Spoiler Alert - it depends on how close you are/were to them.

Planes recirculate air through HEPA filters which trap viruses. Cabin air is changed every 3 minutes.

Like every other disease it also spreads through the fecal-oral route, meaning people who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom and inevitably eat something or touch their faces. Of course those people are also touching seatbelts and tray tables and the like. But that is a good question of how long it can survive on surfaces. From what I've read it's anywhere from a few hours to a week.
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I hear a virologist on NPR say it may survive as long as 3 days on an open surface, which is pretty long for a virus. UV light apparently kills it.

I'm guessing that airlines will be given instructions on additional cleaning procedures pretty soon.

Flyers 60+ may - irrationally or not - think twice before flying.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4d60469ba1.png

WHO - China Joint Mission on COVID -19

Maybe someone could create a drone designed for flying inside a plane, that staff could launch, and it would blast the whole cabin with strong UV light in just a few minutes? :idea: That might be much less time consuming that manual sanitizing.

And that's the problem with Southwest's fast-turn strategy, it doesn't allow for when extra steps are needed between plane uses.

Are we going to hear in the news that Southwest is going to cut back N% of flights because they have to add 10 minutes extra between each flight for sanitizing? :eek: