Prognosis

Airlines Send in World’s Strongest Disinfectants to Fight Virus

Aircraft cleaning now resembles hospital-style sterilizations
Qantas and Korean Air Lines evacuated people on Boeing 747s

How Airlines Are Disinfecting Coronavirus Rescue Planes

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By Angus Whitley, Kyunghee Park, and Nikki Ekstein

February 26, 2020 at 9:00 PM UTC

Updated on

February 27, 2020 at 6:27 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Airlines are turning to the world’s hardest-hitting disinfectants to rid planes of the coronavirus.

Qantas Airways Ltd., Korean Air Lines Co. and Singapore Airlines Ltd.’s Scoot unit are among carriers that helped evacuate people from the outbreak’s epicenter, the Chinese city of Wuhan, and from a cruise ship off Japan. They’ve stepped up aircraft-cleaning efforts as a result, trying to ensure that planes used in rescue missions are safe to be put back into commercial use.