How airlines clean their planes

Cleaning airliners is a crucial part of air travel.

It makes the flight far more pleasant for passengers who spend several hours in a relatively crowded, confined space and it’s important for passengers’ health to remove rubbish and clean dirty surfaces that might harbour germs that could make people unwell.

Consequently, at the end of each flight, a crew of cleaning workers enter the airliner in order to get the cabin ready for the next group of passengers who’ll soon be boarding – no matter what time of day or night.
And it has to be a slick process – sometimes within minutes – given the quick turnaround times that airlines have to meet. And that takes a systematic, highly-organised effort with attention focused on disinfection of food preparation zones, lavatories and seat eating areas.

Interestingly, technology is key – sophisticated software and wireless tracking devices enable real-time cleaning crew dispatch exactly when planes arrive, combined with exactly what type of clean is necessary so that they can get straight on the job with maximum efficiency.

The process for cleaning the plane cabin, obviously depends on many factors. For example, how long the plane will be on the ground for and whether the flight is domestic or international. Short haul flights have a quick turnaround so the time available to clean them is shorter than it is for long-haul flights. Specific jobs are assigned to individuals and the cleaning team – usually between five and twelve people – moves through the plane systematically.

Of course, if a plane is late, this decreases the time available to clean it whilst simultaneously increasing the pressure to complete the job!

All we can say is, ‘thank you’.