Two of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s major regional airlines are enacting tighter health and sanitation procedures as they attempt to prevent the spread of coronavirus in rural communities.
Grant Aviation and Ravn Air are now verbally and visually screening employees and passengers. Before passengers are allowed to board aircraft or workers are able to begin their shifts, they are being asked if they have COVID-19 symptoms, if they’ve been around anyone with these symptoms, and if they’ve traveled out of state recently. Pilots will screen passengers boarding planes in villages; gate agents will screen passengers in communities that have terminals, like Bethel. Both airlines have also increased the frequency of sanitizing their aircraft. Neither have changed flight schedules.
Grant Aviation will begin requiring employees to take daily temperature readings as well. “We’re enacting these measures as soon as we can get supplies to do them,” said Grant Aviation Vice President of Operations Dan Knesek.
He ordered 4,000 sterile, disposable thermometers two weeks ago, and is expecting to receive 200 of them on March 20. The rest are scheduled to arrive by the beginning of April. He is expecting to receive a shipment of no-contact, digital thermometers around the same time. When the digital thermometers arrive, passengers will also have their temperatures read.
“It’s been crazy just trying to get things,” Knesek said. “We’ve been trying to stay ahead of this, but thermometers, of all things, we can’t find. That’s the biggest barrier to enact our plan. We started looking locally and then online, but everything has been sold out or back-ordered.”
Rural communities throughout the region are imposing travel restrictions to hopefully prevent the virus from reaching their villages. Hooper Bay has asked Grant to limit the passengers flying into Hooper Bay to residents.
Many Grant pilots live in the lower 48 and travel to Alaska for work. Knesek says that Grant is following state health mandates for employees returning from out of state, requiring a 14-day quarantine before beginning their shifts. He says that many pilots are flying up early to complete their quarantine before their shifts begin. To accommodate the quarantines, Knesek is looking for housing in the Anchorage area for more than 20 workers.
He asks everyone to help slow the spread of this pandemic. “Do not fly if you’re sick,” Knesek said. “All of us need to work together to get through this.”
