September-October_2021 - 25

FACILITIES MAINTENANCE
hospital environment, would not be
as well-received or effective in an
airport environment, " Hoffman said.
Lea rn ing
and
cont inua l ly
adapting to the changing pitches of
the pandemic has been one of the
greatest challenges, Hoffman said.
" Our biggest
chal lenge was
knowledge - educating staff about
the changes the pandemic brought
on. We had to review and update all
of our Standard Operating Procedures
(SOPs), we had to train our custodial
staff on these new practices and
emphasize the paradigm shift that
now we are not only cleaning, but
we are safeguarding passengers' and
employees' health, " she said.
Hoffman added that, for example,
pandemic or having cleaning robots
as part of our staff. So definitely the
use of new technology for cleaning
the terminal is the most notable
trend that has come about during the
pandemic, " Hoffman said.
Technological upgrades were
needed to meet their new focus on
high-frequency disinfecting at all the
passenger touchpoints throughout the
passenger journey.
" We had to look at our
equipment. We were flooded with
recent
innovations and cleaning
technologies. So we undertook
looking at all of those, deciding what
would work at our airport and benefit
our passengers, then making changes
with procurement. We never had
cleaning technology as a priority on
our business plan, so immediately that
changed. In the initial stage of the
pandemic we implemented handheld
foggers to disinfect passenger areas, "
said Hoffman.
Hous ton Ai rpor t s
quick ly
added UV to their autonomous
floor scrubbers, allowing them to
effectively disinfect floors using the
robots that were already operating
in the terminal. More recently, the
airports have added additional robots
- the Breezy One - that autonomously
disinfect areas used by passengers.
Not everything the airport tried
worked in the long run, however.
" There were other options that
didn't work out, either because they
were cost-prohibitive or because of
the time it would take to implement
them. Some other technology that
would work well, for instance in a
if the cleaning agent requires a dwell
time of one minute and requires that
you spray it directly onto the surface
and not onto the cloth initially to be
effective, they had to make sure the
instructions were followed each and
every time.
" These changes are critical to
the effectiveness of the cleaning, so
the procedures had to be reviewed
and updated, and we had to have
intensive training sessions to make
sure all our staff members followed
them appropriately, " she continued.
Another challenge was not just
learning for themselves but then
conveying what they learned and
putting best practices into place for
the passengers, making sure they were
knowledgeable and felt safe returning
to the airport.
" We spent a lot of time with our
airline tenants and with our airport
communications team getting the
word to the public of all our efforts.
Our communications team produced
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 \ AVIATIONPROS.COM / 25
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY THE HOUSTON AIRPORTS.
http://www.AVIATIONPROS.COM
September-October_2021

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