Polygon cleans up possible Corona contaminated flight

The 7th of February, a passenger traveling from Finland started showing symptoms reminiscent of a person with Coronavirus, before landing at Copenhagen airport.

The plane was set for departure again at 15:00 hours and the airline needed to honor the time as much as possible to avoid huge costs. The airport cleaning staff did not feel confident enough to handle this situation and contacted their Security Manager, who decided to call in the experts.

At 12:18 Polygon DB in Denmark was contacted by the Airport Security with questions whether we could handle the decontamination of both the aircraft and gate area where the passenger had used the toilet.

Paw Larsen, Head of department for Greater Copenhagen, accepted the assignment.

“We did not know what to expect or how to deal with this particular issue, since it was a first time job. Also, I wasn’t sure anybody would take on the task from my unit, because of the virus problems, but this was no problem. They are used to cleaning up after incidents of different nature. Also, with a deadline for the job, we were pressed for getting the right instructions, and agents for the disinfection.

Volunteers from Polygon DB arrived at the airport at 12:45. At 14:15 they had finished the disinfection of the plane. At 14.25, the Polygon team began cleaning the toilets the passenger had used. At 16:00 hours, the colleagues at Polygon Denmark had successfully finished the task.

It took 3 hours and 42 minutes from the reception of the call for Polygon Denmark to finalize the assignment. This was doable thanks to Paw’s leadership and the volunteering employees, in collaboration with Airport Security and the Danish Health Department.

Besides following internal routines for the sanitation of eventual Coronavirus footprints, when asked what processes contributed to the effective solution of the problem, Paw is quick to reply:

“We always have Emergency cars on the roads, to deliver fast service.”

Polygon Denmark’s procedure was approved by the Danish health authorities. Including safety equipment and disinfectant.