That’s becoming a big question as preparations go forward for returning to ‘normal’ air traffic. There’s serious difference over what measures will be needed to keep passengers and staff from transferring infection, with some arguing that it simply can’t be done.
While more and more carriers daily are requiring masks for all passengers and crew and are planning various schemes to keep passengers spread out within planes, concern is focusing on the airports, where everyone gathers to be processed through security, to pass through long corridors, to use the same shops and restrooms.
Hong Kong International Airport is testing an automated decontamination chamber from a company called CleanTech, designed to disinfect travelers from head to toe after having their temperatures checked. The cleaning takes about 40 seconds while travelers are doused with a spray. Inside surfaces are treated with anti-microbial coatings, as are other surfaces around the airport, which is spraying counters and kiosks, toilets and elevators.
Taking an opposite tack, the CEO of Heathrow Airport doesn’t think it can be done. Not at all. “Social distancing just cannot work in any transportation system,” the CEO said. “I was out in the terminals yesterday looking at the social distancing we have in place with just a few thousand passengers a day, and already it’s hard to manage. So it’s impossible to have social distancing in an airport, let alone on the plane.” He did not say what he thought might be a solution.
But Swiss company Xovis, which specializes in ‘people flow management systems’ in airports thinks it can be done, using tech tools including a passenger contagion map to track movement of individuals and groups through the airport, and identifying contagious groups at an early stage of the airport process. Their work has been published in a white paper that they’ve made available to airport authorities and others.
