This culture of hotels and cruise liners is seeping into many other sectors, where the footfall is high but the ambience is that of a five star hotel. Since airports cannot shut down for cleaning, the maintenance works are carried out during the lean period or at nights. Prateek Kumar Jain, who has a vast experience in the hospitality, cruise liner and now in the aviation industry, says, “Cruise liners are vigilant in terms of hygiene due to environment laws world over. However, in recent years, most of the sectors have taken initiatives in using products which are eco-friendly and cost-effective. Whether it is a hotel or an airport, the housekeeping department keeps doing R&D in terms of chemicals or machines for better results.”
For efficient delivery of maintenance services, the airport area is divided into different zones. Accordingly, the equipment/machines like ride on scrubber dryers, dry mopping scooty and walk behinds are stationed closer to areas like the large sitting areas, utility areas, car park, VVIP and visitors area. In this way, the public area is cleared fast without hampering the operations at any given point of time.
“With high footfall, maintaining washrooms in airport is definitely challenging but with the proper cleaning schedules, problems can be handled better. Washrooms have to be attended regularly. For instance, the odour issues of a male washroom can be tackled by introducing steam cleaners or an effective cleaning chemical.”
Pest management is another important aspect in airport maintenance. The divided zones are monitored by a team of pest expert who monitors the nesting & harborage areas of various pests like lizards, mosquitoes, ants, cockroaches and flies.
Health and safety are two important points and form a part of every briefing and discussions held with the housekeeping staff. It is essential that a fresher is trained on the job on public health standards, proper cleaning techniques, requirements and use of equipment, including proper chemical handling / knowledge of duster and inventory control.
“High rise cleaning (Façade and ACP sheets) must be carried out with the help of reliable equipment with safety as priority. The staff/janitor who performs this task should have a licence to operate the equipment and the safety department should also keep giving refresher training to all the team members.”