Roissy Airport (France) (AFP)
At a distance of one meter, a mask over their faces, the passengers have their temperature checked before boarding a flight to Pointe-à-Pitre. Like the rest of the airlines, Air France is stepping up sanitary measures to restore confidence and boost anemic air traffic.
A hostess holds a small pistol which she points at the passenger's forehead. If it exceeds 38 degrees, impossible to board. If the carriers of the coronavirus do not necessarily have a fever, this measure is "part of a whole", argues Vincent Feuillie, Air France medical consultant.
"It also makes it possible to avoid being turned back by the authorities on arrival in the event of a fever and being checked is also a fear of the gendarme", which will encourage people not to fly if you know you're sick, he deciphers in the middle of a ghostly crowded terminal.
A thousand aircraft movements per day from Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle usually, Air France counted Tuesday only 44. With the pandemic and border closures, global air traffic has collapsed, putting companies kneeling financially.
As the world fades, it is imperative for their survival that their customers return to heaven as soon as possible. This does not seem to be won: only 14% of consumers would get back on a plane as soon as the traffic restrictions were lifted, 40% would wait six months or more and the majority one or two months, according to a survey carried out in eleven countries by the Transport Association. international airline (Iata), which brings together 290 airlines.
"It is an unprecedented epidemic and crisis which is causing concern for our customers. We have therefore developed a whole health course to reassure them", explains Catherine Villar, director "customer experience" of the French national airline.
From recording, where one terminal out of two is neutralized and hydroalcoholic gel available, to taking temperature and boarding "clocked" starting from the back of the plane so that people do not meet, Air France is stacking measures to avoid possible transmission.
On board, the sale of duty-free products is suspended and the service "adapted" with the abolition of meals and drinks for flights of less than two and a half hours.
- Virucidal every five days -
In the cabin of a Boeing 777 which is to take off for Dakar, a man in a yellow hooded suit, mask and protective glasses, goes up the aisles holding a small lance which nebulizes a virucidal product. "It is effective over time, we have been doing it every five days since mid-March," said Yasmine Geha, cabin engineer.
To this is added after each flight, a "reinforced" cleaning-disinfection of the device. Up to sixteen people can be mobilized for one hour for a B777, compared to twelve in normal times. Tablets, screens, belts, portholes, everything goes there.
"We have always disinfected planes, but here we are pushing to the extreme," explains Géraud Visinoni, deputy director of Acna, a service provider. "Before there was a cleaning of the most frequent surfaces and contact points, now we do them all, even the most improbable", like the interior of the luggage compartments.
Nothing to fear either with the air circulation, ensures the entire aviation sector. Renewed every three minutes, it is taken in part from the outside, is mixed with the air circulating on the plane and previously passed through a Hepa filter, which filters 99.97% of the particles, including the coronavirus.
The flight from Pointe-à-Pitre will not even leave half full. With all these measures, one of the passengers, Gitane Scholl, says she is "not at all afraid". After two months confined to mainland France, "what [bothers him] is the + fortnight + compulsory on arrival" in Guadeloupe. A measure finally censored by the Constitutional Council a few hours before the return of this former nurse on his island.
© 2020 AFP