Fly early in the day to reduce coronavirus risk – as planes are only deep cleaned overnight

Fly early in the day to reduce coronavirus risk – as planes are only deep cleaned overnight

07/19/2020

BRITS are slowly returning to the skies as flights resume and countries reopen their borders to tourists.

While airlines are increasing their safety measures amid the pandemic, including additional cleaning processes, passengers can also make it safer for themselves, depending on when they fly.

According to one former flight attendant, early flights are often much safer to fly on.

An ex-crew member explained on Reddit: "Those blankets and pillows? Yeah, those just get refolded and stuffed back in the bins between flights.

"Only fresh ones I ever saw were on an originating first flight in the morning in a provisioning city."

The general cleanliness of the plane is also much better first thing.

Every airline has some sort of cleaning between each flight, whether it’s by flight attendants or a maintenance crew, but these are often rushed affairs that simply collect rubbish and do a cursory amount of vacuuming.

The only deep-clean of the day happens overnight, when a team of cleaners will wipe down seats and tray tables with disinfectants and properly scrub the bathrooms.

That means that people flying on the first flight of the day get the cleanest plane of all.

Christian Rooney, manager of aviation cleaning specialist JetWash Aero told CNN Travel that because of the limited time, the majority of cleaning between flight is just removing rubbish.

"A basic but more thorough cabin clean is usually carried out at night — or when there is more downtime — and it includes the cleaning of toilets, wiping down and disinfecting of trays, cleaning galleys, [ovefrhead bins], seats etc."

This could all change post-pandemic, however – many airlines are now increasing their cleaning procedures.

Ryanair says it has enhanced its overnight cleaning with every aircraft interior being treated with hospital-grade disinfectant, while easyJet planes will undergo "enhanced cleaning and disinfection".

Others have removed blankets and pillows as well as inflight magazines and safety leaflets to prevent them from being able to spread the virus.

Yet with planes unable to do deep cleans between flights, due to strict time constraints, you can still assume the first flight will be the cleanest.

A new plane seat design could be the future of travel post-coronavirus.

The new designs would see hygiene screens fitted in each seat, as well as new middle seats which would face backwards while flying.

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