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Home » United Airlines » How United Airlines Cleans Aircraft
United Airlines

How United Airlines Cleans Aircraft

Matthew Klint Posted onApril 11, 2020November 14, 2023 12 Comments

a person spraying a jet into a room

With the potential of economic life resuming and travel starting to ramp up (slowly) next month, United has released a pair of new videos to assure us it is properly cleaning its aircraft interiors.

The first video provides an overview of how United cleans planes, showing how they are wiped down with a “high grade disinfectant” and “multi-purpose cleaner” once a day which includes every visible surface onboard. While the aircraft is cleaned after every flight, this deep clean is only performed once per day. United also uses HEPA filter onboard “many” aircraft.

Should a case of COVID-19 be linked to a United aircraft, that aircraft is immediately taken out of service and a deeper clean is performed.

The second video focuses on electrostatic spraying, which quickly and evenly distributes disinfectant across surfaces, including hard-to-reach places by “wrapping itself” around surfaces in an opposite-charged environment.

Both videos were published to United’s YouTube channel.

Many flight attendants have reached out privately to me to report that aircraft are not being cleaned. Mark, who recently provided a fascinating trip report for Live and Let’s Fly on flying in the COVID-19 era, specifically remarked about how clean (in both appearance and smell) his 787-10 was when he flew from Los Angeles to Newark.

If you’ve flown lately (and not just United, any airline), have you noticed a difference? Was your aircraft cleaner than ever before?

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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12 Comments

  1. Santastico Reply
    April 11, 2020 at 1:31 pm

    Shouldn’t this be the way they always cleaned the airplanes? I really hope we will all have some great positive changes in our lives because of this virus.

    • Matthew Reply
      April 11, 2020 at 1:31 pm

      Agreed.

  2. Kevin Reply
    April 11, 2020 at 2:04 pm

    I don’t doubt these new videos. I’m sure United will continue this practice for at least a couple of weeks after service returns to some kind of normal. Then they will be right back to just barely having the 3rd party “cleaning” crews picking up trash between flights.

    I agree with Santastico, above, shouldn’t they ALWAYS be cleaning to this standard? Unfortunately it won’t last.

    • Dick Bupkiss Reply
      April 11, 2020 at 2:31 pm

      Oh, come on, Kevin – have a little faith! It definitely will last – until the second wave of infections spikes and shuts down the economy again, a month or two after Trump “opens up the country” in May. Then this will all start over again, with the next stay-at-home orders, the subsequent next economic crash, government bailout, and Great Depression v3. Count on it.

      • Jesse Reply
        April 12, 2020 at 8:01 pm

        Oh that’s nice United…none of team cleaning are wearing masks?! I hardly doubt they are actually doing any of this additional cleaning. It’s just marketing.

        • Rosie Reply
          April 13, 2020 at 9:27 am

          Jesse I am a United catering driver and don’t worry the spraying is taking place. They ARE disinfecting and thoroughly cleaning our air craft. I can not enter an air craft galley until after they are done. Hope this gives you a little peace of mind.

  3. Charles M Reply
    April 11, 2020 at 2:35 pm

    Flew yesterday from IAD-LAX on a United 787-9 in Polaris/business class, didn’t seem any cleaner than before. I wiped down my seat with antibacterial wipes (as I always have done) and noticed the same amount of debris as I always do. In the lav, there were paper towels and toilet paper, but the facial tissue box was empty. I don’t think planes are any cleaner now with their “enhanced” cleaning routine.

  4. James Reply
    April 11, 2020 at 2:56 pm

    Seems like this is something that should always have been done. If, as a result of this crisis, our country could adopt some of the behavioral and hygiene practices of Japanese and Nordic people, we might just have a brighter future.

  5. cargocult Reply
    April 11, 2020 at 9:20 pm

    I few round-trip SFO-SIN in February and found the aircraft to be filthy both ways. There were crumbs at my seat on one flight and the interior door of one of the BusinessFirst lavatories was covered in what looked like mold. Given that COVID-19 was already in the news then, it was a bit disturbing to see how little attention was given to aircraft sanitation. I was already in the habit of wiping down my seat area with disinfectant cloths before this disaster. The worst part is trying to disinfect seatbelts and cloth seats. I suppose the Polaris mattress pads mitigate the filthiness of the upholstery. The sort of cleaning depicted in the videos should have been standard practice all along, but given the financial difficulties airlines face, I worry that it won’t continue for very long once a COVID-19 vaccine is in wide use. I shudder at the memory of passengers who would walk to the lavatory without any shoes on. If they have so little concern for hygiene in public, what other disgusting behaviors of theirs might we not be witnessing?

  6. JM Reply
    April 13, 2020 at 1:15 am

    I’m an employee and a customer of United. I last flew as a customer in mid-March, after their announcement of deep cleaning of planes, in a filthy 787 seat. I last flew as an employee about the same time and saw the usual 2-3 cleaners come on the plane with the supervisor yelling, “quick turn, quick turn”. That means quickly grab the most obvious and visible trash, don’t cross seatbelts, don’t clean out seat backs and don’t clean tray tables. I haven’t seen a non-quick turn flight in years. And that includes the recent times where we have fewer than a dozen customers on the flights and very few flights.

    United makes wonderful plans, but doesn’t follow through. I’m sure the cleaners would like to do a thorough disinfecting, but there is only so much that the 2-3 cleaners assigned each aircraft can do in the 5 or so minutes they have.

    • Dave G Reply
      April 13, 2020 at 2:13 am

      And still the govt giving them bailout money. They will still complain subsidiaries of the middle East big 3, which are clean and treat customers well.
      These American big garbage 3 should let be bankrupt and wiped out with their CEOs. If the humans could survive the ice age, the influenza, great depression and this corona….let these three vanish. There’s always room for something new to emerge.

  7. emercycrite Reply
    April 13, 2020 at 6:11 am

    Does anyone actually believe this or any other similar video that several airlines have now produced? If so, I have a bridge to sell you.

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