Tag Archives for cleaning.
Highlighting the investment in hand sanitizer stations is cool, it’s more than others are doing – although perhaps others will feel the need to copy. And they should be applauded on that alone, along with sanitizing efforts between every flight. There’s really no need for the rest of the Delta-style exaggeration that seems to come with the news..
One scientist argues “if the disinfectant remains potent enough to kill the virus, it could also affect passengers.” It’s not clear to me that’s how the science works. Soap is potent enough to kill the virus.
Nonetheless concerns are being raised about the safety of the chemical American plans to use to disinfect aircraft.
An executive at another airline who managed a UV cleaning procurement process tells me they evaluated GermFalcon and found it “too fragile,” that it didn’t live up to its claims, and that the actual device is too unwieldly, JetBlue “will never get to use it on turns” the way they’re promoting.
United Airlines branded its cleanliness efforts with Clorox. Hilton puts Lysol stickers on hotel room doors after the rooms have been cleaned. Now Delta Air Lines has struck a deal with Lysol as well.
Lysol will provide Delta with disinfectant spray and wipes and “develop new protocols for areas such as lavatories.” They’ll also work on “disinfection procedures at departure gates and in Sky Clubs, and Delta will deploy “care carts” with EPA-approved Lysol disinfection products.”
United scored a real marketing coup when they licensed Clorox’s name for their efforts. This week they promised to increase outside airflow during boarding and deplaning. And at the end of next week they’re slated to introduce a new cleaning technology into their cockpits.
However conversations with several airline executives paint a different picture of the airline’s investments. While on Monday CEO Scott Kirby said “I am going to keep encouraging our team to explore and implement new ideas, new technologies, new policies and new procedures that better protect our customers and employees,” I’m told they’ve even let go of the employee driving their cleaning technology projects as part of non-union their layoffs.
In previous challenging times airlines cut back on their cleaning, going as long as 18 months between deep cleans. Now despite losing billions of dollars per quarter airlines have stepped up their level of cleaning every day.
That needs to continue. Covid-19 isn’t the only threat to health. People are going to have this experience fresh in their minds. Masks are likely to persist at least for some, even after they’re no longer required inflight. Airlines and hotels are going to need to compete on clean.
U.S. airlines need to block middle seats because their brands don’t convey cleanliness or trust. When you don’t have cleanliness and trust as a brand, you have to massively overshoot on investment to credibly signal ‘this time is different’.
TV reporters checked into a Hyatt, Hilton, and a Trump hotel in New York and left marks on pillows, television remotes, thermostats and other areas of the room with washable sprays and gels that show up under UV light to see whether cleaning procedures are being followed.
They checked back into the same rooms the next day to see whether sheets had been changed and high touch points had been cleaned. Two hotels utterly failed, and one hotel partly failed – enough so that you wouldn’t want to stay there.
Expect hotels to look at ways to cut costs anywhere they can and to use coronavirus as an excuse. Even better when changing consumer preferences make it easier to impose cost savings. Several chains already say they’re trying to make their increase investments in cleaning cost-neutral.
Business Insider suggests that Airbnb’s are safer in the current climate than hotels, because there are fewer people occupying any given Airbnb than occupy a hotel. I’m not so sure that’s the right answer.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
