Safe Travels

Enhanced protocols for aircraft cleanliness protect the health of customers and crews.

- EUGENIA LAZARIS

Airplanes, with enclosed spaces and close quarters, have always given germ-conscious travelers reason to worry. When the World Health Organization identified SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus as a public health concern in January 2020 followed by officially declaring COVID-19 a pandemic two months later, the cleaning practices of airlines took center stage in the consciousness of travelers. Since that time airlines and public health officials worked tirelessly to adjust protocols and techniques to provide safe environments for passengers and crew to ensure air travel remains safe and enjoyable.

The travel industry has been one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. During the early days of this global crisis, air travel dropped drastically, especially as travel bans and restrictions impacted tourism. Concerns of both passengers and flight crews prompted airlines to adopt more stringent safety protocols. Many of these new policies were guided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some were developed by the airlines themselves as added measures to keep employees and passengers as safe as possible.