What Airport Passenger Assistance Workers Need to Know about COVID-19

As an airport passenger service worker, potential sources of exposure can occur from assisting, transporting, or escorting a person with COVID-19 and their belongings or by touching your mouth, nose, or eyes.

• Limit the amount of time you are in close contact (closer than 6 ft) with others, including passengers you are assisting, to the extent feasible.
• Provide a facemask to any visibly sick person you are assisting if one is available and they can tolerate it. Ask them to cover their mouth and nose with tissues when coughing or sneezing. Follow employer’s guidelines for additional steps as required.
• Practice routine cleaning and disinfection of frequently touched surfaces. These include wheelchair handles, motorized carts, other transportation and assistive devices, and communication systems such as two-way radios, tablets, or other mobile devices. Follow the directions on the cleaning product’s label.
• Follow your employers’ normal guidance for handling service/support animals.
• Proper hand hygiene is an important infection control measure. Wash your hands regularly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol.
• Key times to clean hands in general include:
  • Before, during, and after preparing food
  • Before eating food
  • After using the toilet
  • After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
• Additional times to clean hands on the job include:
  • Before and after work shifts
  • Before and after work breaks
  • Between escorting, transporting, or providing assistance to passengers
  • After touching frequently touched surfaces
  • After putting on, touching, or removing cloth face coverings
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.

Your employer should develop a COVID-19 health and safety plan to protect employees. This plan should be shared with you and your coworkers. Your employer should:

• Take steps to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 if an employee is sick. Actively encourage sick employees to stay home. Sick employees should not return to work until the criteria to discontinue home isolation are met, in consultation with healthcare providers and state and local health departments.
• Provide information on who to contact if employees become sick.
• Implement flexible sick leave and supportive policies and practices. Consider drafting non-punitive emergency sick leave policies if sick leave is not offered to some or all employees.
• Designate someone to be responsible for responding to COVID-19 concerns. Employees should know who this person is and how to contact them.
• Provide training on proper hand washing practices and other routine infection control precautions. This will help prevent the spread of many diseases, including COVID-19.
• Provide employees with accurate information about COVID-19, how it spreads, and risk of exposure.
• Provide employees with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) when necessary, taking into account potential PPE shortages, and providing training on using the PPE.
• Provide employees with access to soap, clean running water, and drying materials, or alcohol-based hand sanitizers containing at least 60% alcohol at their worksite.
• Provide disposable disinfectant wipes so that commonly touched surfaces can be wiped down by employees. For disinfection, use products that meet EPA’s criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2 for disinfectionexternal icon, diluted household bleach solutions, or alcohol solutions with at least 70% alcohol, and are appropriate for the surface. Follow manufacturer’s directions for use.
• Provide tissues for ill passengers and no-touch disposal receptacles for use by employees.
• Conduct frequent cleaning of employee break rooms, rest areas, and other common areas.
• Place posters that encourage staying home when sick, covering coughs and sneezes, and washing hands often at the entrance to the workplace and in other workplace areas where they are likely to be seen.
• Follow all applicable federal regulations and public health agency guidelines.