Emirates will now ask all its cabin crew, boarding agents and ground staff in contact with passengers to wear disposable gowns, safety visors, masks and gloves.
Passengers, meanwhile, will be asked to wear masks and gloves throughout their journey from check-in until they disembark.
The airline announced other new measures to stop the spread of coronavirus, including seats being pre-allocated to ensure groups are kept apart to improve social distancing.
The move follows the airline earlier introducing coronavirus tests conducted before boarding.
Emirates has also modified its in-flight services for health and safety reasons. Food and beverages are offered in the form of bento-style boxes to reduce contact between the crew and customers during meal service, and minimise risk of interaction.
Similarly, to reduce risk of spreading the virus by touch, in-flight magazines are temporarily unavailable, cabin baggage is not accepted on flights and all customers have to wear masks and gloves throughout their journey from check-in until they disembark.
Last week, World of Aviation reported that Emirates became the first airline in the world to conduct a rapid, 10-minute COVID-19 test on passengers before they depart.
The airline trialled the initiative, undertaken in conjunction with the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), on passengers flying to Tunisia.
The tests were conveniently done at the group check-in area of Dubai International Airport Terminal 3.
In other airline news:
- United Airlines has begun offering 39,250,000 shares of its common stock. The underwriters, Morgan Stanley and Barclays, are selling the stock in the US$25.95-$26.50 range. The move could potentially raise more than US$1 billion for the airline.
- Air Canada has announced that it will entirely suspend scheduled transborder flights after 26 April. This move comes following the extension of the travel restrictions between Canada and the US.
- Austrian Airlines is to retire half of its Boeing 767 fleet as it deals with its post-pandemic future. The Lufthansa Group airline has been working out how to return from a complete grounding of scheduled services.
- Emirates has confirmed that it will not resume regular flights until at least July. After initially suspending operations in March for two weeks, Emirates has been running a skeleton schedule. All flights have been solely to help repatriate citizens to and from the United Arab Emirates. The airline had planned to begin offering more regular flights before the end of May, but this has now been pushed until 1 July.
- Turkish Airlines will mount nearly 200 rescue flights this week to bring home Turkish nationals that have been stranded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
