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- Welcome back to Abu Dhabi.
Today is something very different.
We're going to so how an airlines cleaning their plane
and disinfect their plane.
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These are the protective suits we're going to put it 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...
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- So we need to cover our heads as well.
- Uh yes.
Crimps around ya nose to stop uh the effects of suppurativa,
make sure nothing can go within your breathing area.
- And also wearing these glasses.
- Yeah.
Just for the guys uh uh disinfecting the aircraft,
so if there's any splashes,
it can't enter into your eyes.
Once the team are onboard 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 you through some
of the products we've got here.
Um Ishan is topping up
um the 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 uh uh a product called Bacoban.
Um which kills the Coronavirus.
These are hand filled also with Bacoban.
These are used for the 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 um than just 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. - Good.
Thank you. - Thank you.
Okay so what myself 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 um a disinfection.
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Uh as you can see this 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 on 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 aeroplane,
imagine wipe off every corner of the plane
to make sure it's all disinfected.
- And that is why Etihad we use we use the same teams
for the 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 of the catering carts,
my guys come in here.
Start spraying.
And they'll spray
all over the side panels,
on the floor.
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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.
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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
with the fogging is because it 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.
Bacoban 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 seat 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 taken off.
'cause I can see clearly its 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 differently you would do
in cleaning business class?
- Uh Sam no the the disinfection
from the aircraft is the same
in business as it is in economy.
Um the safety of the passengers irrespective
of what what cabin they're in, is exactly the same.
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- The earlier flights to lots of country now
has been identified high risk for Coronavirus.
So is there any different cleaning procedure you preform
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 a reported suspected case onboard,
we enhance the cleaning um from any other clean
which includes uh disinfection irrespective 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 guests' 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
because the passengers' baggage is held within them areas,
so we need to ensure that there's no contamination.
- [David] Let's talk about the air supply,
so modern jet airlines all have uh a very high airflow rate,
so there's 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,
showing me the process.
That lots of hard work has been put behind
to making sure the flights the plane is safe and healthy.
Thank you so much.
- It's our pleasure sir.
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