FAA research report helps clarify the risk of communicable disease during air travel

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a civil aviation authority under the United States Department of Transportation, is conducting a formal risk assessment of disease transmission during passenger airline operations to inform preparedness planning for future outbreaks. To accomplish this project, the FAA engaged Movement Strategies, a GHD company (MS/GHD), and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), to develop a data acquisition strategy and associated data collection methodology suitable for use in real world airport/airline operations and laboratory environments. This will allow the FAA to better understand disease risk through assessment modeling and simulation. 

The project needs to collect data on passenger behaviors and environmental conditions in the gate-to-gate (airport boarding gate, jet bridge, and aircraft cabin) segment that are relevant to disease transmission. This data will be used to develop models and conduct computer simulations of the gate-to-gate environment to quantitatively analyze disease risk and the degree of risk mitigation achieved with various controls. The project is being conducted in two-phases:

Phase 1 (2023) Develop a data acquisition strategy and associated data collection methodology suitable for real world airport/airline operations and a human subject research experiment/laboratory simulation of the gate-to-gate segment to be conducted at the NRC’s Centre for Air Travel Research (CATR) facility, which is part of the NRC’s Flight Research Lab, located in Ottawa, Canada.

Phase 2 (2023-2025) Apply the data collection methodology in real world airport/airline operations and at the NRC’s CATR facility. 

Movement Strategies/GHD and the NRC formulated a data acquisition strategy to address three key factors: 

1. Passenger and staff/crew behaviors contributing to disease transmission.
2. Physiological contributors /respiratory factors contributing to disease exposure.
3. Environmental conditions impacting disease transmission in the gate-to-gate environment.

As part of phase 1, field observations at two airports and on board two flights accomplished earlier this year identified passenger behaviors of interest to focus the data collection protocol.

MS/GHD helped the NRC develop a comparable method to be applied at its CATR facility, which includes an instrumented experimental section replicating an airport gate, boarding bridge, and aircraft cabin allowing detailed measurements. 

The methodology will collect data using manual observations along with cameras located in the experimental airport gate, boarding bridge, and aircraft cabin. Instrumentation is used to sense object movement (e.g., door handles, flush, and faucet). Other data collection will also be employed including vest technology for physiological measurements (e.g., respiratory activity), along with AI-based tools to detect speakers in a multi-person space. Data collection efforts will assess passenger and crew movement to understand touch points, closeness of contact and ‘emitter’ actions (including speaking) given direction faced. 

Read the FAA report on Communicable Disease Transmission in Air Travel.

The combination of these activities allows an understanding of passenger exposure to environmental conditions (which might include viral aerosol or droplets) and how the environment might be affected by passenger actions (feeding back into conditions faced by other passengers). Data collected will produce a more evidence-based foundation on which the FAA can develop models to assess the potential future transmission of diseases during air travel and compare the impact of mitigation efforts. In addition, the field and experimental protocols generated will provide a basis for future data collection efforts, possibly required as demographics, technology, airport/aircraft design, and management approaches evolve.