Bogotá airport adopts biosecurity measures for eventual reopening
Bogotá, Jun 25 (efe-epa).- Bogotá’s El Dorado international airport has implemented biosecurity measures to protect passengers from possible coronavirus infections when airlines resume flights, operators said Thursday.
“The airport prepared to restart operations with all the biosafety measures in place and waiting to structure the protocols for the pilot plans with the Mayor of Bogotá, the Civil Aeronautics and with the airlines,” Andrés Ortega, manager of Opain, a company that It manages the third most important passenger airport in Latin America.
The measures have to do with the use of thermal imaging cameras, with advanced technology to automatically take body temperature, and the installation of 15 thermal cameras in different areas of the airport.
Waiting rooms, rugs and furniture are also disinfected with a micro-diffuser.
Stairs, handrails and contact areas are disinfected ten times a day.
Added to that is that, as a protection barrier in areas where there is public service, 225 acrylics were installed and that the buses that transport passengers between the terminals will be disinfected three times a day.
Passengers who are going to enter El Dorado will necessarily have to wear gloves and wear their face masks and, if for any reason they do not have them, they can be purchased from vending machines installed nearby for these purposes.
To minimize people-to-people contacts, passengers are asked to fill out their boarding passes virtually and chairs will be separated in waiting rooms as required by biosecurity measures.
Likewise, all travelers entering the airport will have their temperature taken and if a person has any symptoms of the disease, it will be communicated to the Ministry of Health of Bogotá, which will isolate them in a tent.
On the other hand, more than 1,000 antibacterial gel dispensers were installed in the air terminal, 482 sinks with 280 soap dispensers, 40 portable sinks in public areas and in the enabled entrances of the air terminal, and 40 shoe disinfection mats.
“We want to be a benchmark and provide tranquility to our passengers and to our entire airport community,” Ortega concluded.
On March 17, the Colombian Government declared a state of emergency throughout the country between March 20 and May 30 to counter the advance of the coronavirus. Two days later he announced the ban on international flights, which came into effect on March 23 initially for a period of 30 days.
Since March 25, when the quarantine began, domestic flights and passenger transport by road have also been suspended.
However, Colombian President Iván Duque announced at the end of last month an eventual resumption of international flights from September 1. EFE-EPA
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