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5 The Aviation Industry's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Pages 35-44

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From page 35...
... Michael Delaney, the chief aerospace safety officer and senior vice president of global aerospace safety at Boeing, and also a member of the workshop planning committee, described what actions Boeing took in response to the pandemic and, in particular, the establishment of the Confident Travel Initiative. And similarly, Stefan Roemelt, senior vice president of engineering, cabin and cargo at Airbus, offered an overview of Airbus's response to the pandemic.
From page 36...
... "It's a door-to-door experience." Another challenge that airlines have been facing is the uncertainty caused by ever-changing travel restrictions. Quoting Robert Lange, the senior vice president of Airbus, she said that customer surveys have shown that the main reason people give now for not flying is not the health risk but rather the risk that they will arrive at a destination and be unable to leave because of some newly imposed travel restrictions.
From page 37...
... First, she quoted Dennis Buitendijy at Qatar Airlines as commenting, in essence, You shouldn't waste a good crisis, and COVID can be a real catalyst for change. "We are seeing changes in R&D priorities, we're seeing a continued focus on protecting passengers and crew, and it really is a very exciting time to be in aviation and to tackle a lot of the problems going on." Second, she said that there is some frustration on the part of airlines in response to the ever-changing travel restrictions and the effect of that on airline demand and operations.
From page 38...
... There is still a lot of debate inside Delta about which direction to go, and the company is working with both internal and external scientific and medical experts to make that decision. Delta is also a firm believer in testing programs, Garrison said.
From page 39...
... Third, minimizing transmission if an infected person made it onto the plane meant finding ways, such as masking and increased ventilation, to make it less likely any virus particles could be passed on. They laid out the program to have three time horizons.
From page 40...
... The second thing the team did was to perform analyses using computational fluid dynamics to understand what happens with the viral particles when an infected person sitting on a plane coughs or sneezes. They performed the analyses in a 737 model and also on the company's wide-body planes.
From page 41...
... To understand the risk of viral transmission in an aircraft cabin with an infected person, Airbus engineers worked with a computational fluid dynamics model of air flow within a cabin. They modeled the air flow in a portion of a cabin that included the row in which an infected person sat as well as two rows in front and two rows in back.
From page 42...
... There are social distancing and mask requirements, more than 300 gel dispensers scattered around the airport, UV light disinfection of security trays and escalators, terminal entry restrictions, the chemical disinfection of hold baggage, touchless self-boarding, sanitization booths, sanitizing robots, masks in vending machines, and much more. According to surveys, passengers passing through the airport are satisfied with the steps the airport has taken, with 99.6 percent of them saying they felt safe at the airport.
From page 43...
... The Airport Response in Europe Panait began by explaining that EASA has a function in Europe much like that of the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States, that is, it is the European regulator for aviation safety. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the main document EASA published is COVID-19 Aviation Health Safety Protocol, which provides guidelines for the management of airline passengers in crew relative to the pandemic.
From page 44...
... Both the airports and the airlines provide information about COVID policies to passengers, but they differ in how they provide the information -- at the check-in counter or elsewhere in the airport, on the ticket, audio reminders, social media messages, and so on. Nearly two-thirds of airports reported using thermal screening, but only 40 percent had passengers fill out a health questionnaire, and just 14 percent were testing passengers.


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