Flight Certified is introducing a new decontamination and disinfecting program pioneered by airlines to the hotel industry.
The company—founded by leaders from the aviation, medical, hospitality and service industries—is the U.S. distributor for nonaviation use of Calla 1452, a disinfecting agent initially used to decontaminate commercial aircraft that the company claims is 75-90 percent more effective than current hotel industry decontamination and disinfection standards. The company offers trained experts to thoroughly disinfect hotel spaces.
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“Guests want the comfort of knowing their hotel stay is protected against COVID-19 and are keenly aware of the process and chemical’s effectiveness on airplanes,” said Flight Certified President Gene Spaziani. “We believe Calla 1452 can play an important role in helping accelerate the return to ‘normal’ occupancy while dramatically improving disinfection and safety. Initial tests show that Calla 1452 is less costly than the recently introduced brand standard products and is much faster to apply, helping to contain labor costs. Furthermore, utilizing our trained team of experts frees up hotel staff to handle their core jobs while allowing owners the comfort of knowing that the disinfection process has been carried out thoroughly and properly.”
Calla 1452 is an Environmental Protection Agency- and Federal Aviation Administration-approved agent that, over two decades of use, has been shown to be safe for people and nondamaging to a range of materials. Originally created to combat the 2002 SARS epidemic, the disinfecting agent not only kills viruses on contact but also works as a fungicide, mildewstat, deodorizer, detergent and cleanser, according to the company. Flight Certified uses electrostatic sprayers that deliver 40 times the coverage of conventional sprayers while using one quarter the amount of disinfectant. The company uses proprietary equipment to track disinfecting efforts and verify existing disinfecting procedures, as well as identify areas with high contamination that are less common but require more attention.
To evaluate the incremental decontamination of Flight Certified’s process as compared to brand standards, Calla 1452 was applied following a hotel’s use of brand standards in baseline tests. Measuring a proxy for surface contamination, FC technicians applied Calla 1452 to an already “disinfected/decontaminated” room. The agent proved to be a more effective and superior disinfecting agent by an average of 75-90 percent, dramatically reducing surface contaminants at four test hotels. The hotels complied with major brand disinfecting product standards.