EDITOR’S
WELCOME
MISSION
STATEMENT
ALI comes from the
same team responsible
for the well-established
titles of Ground Handling
International and Ramp
Equipment News. As
such, it builds on over
20 years of industry
experience and, with
a comprehensive and
skilled team of writers
based in both Europe
and the US, aims to bring
the reader up to date
with the world of air
transportation.
Sanitisation
The S word has been doing the rounds for some weeks now.
Sanitising has become a mainstream word in the wake of
COVID-19. The days of the 25 minute turnaround are already
history: preparing a passenger aircraft now requires an hour or more.
Likewise, cargo aircraft are subject to thorough cleaning measures as
they rotate. But it’s not just about sanitising aircraft: there is a broader
need for the world’s population to follow medical guidance and adopt
safety measures (like masks) without question. That way, confidence
will return to this beleaguered sector, as well as others. Yet daily I read
of instances where certain sections of society, who clearly know better,
ignore such medical advice, and carry on as if there were no viral threat.
However, sanitising has extended beyond the present.
I read earlier this month of the decision by the authorities at RAF
Scampton in the UK to remove the headstone of a dog that died there
in 1943, and replace it with another, reworded version.
The dog in question was a black Labrador, the flight mascot that
belonged to Guy Gibson, 617 Squadron’s Wing Commander. By
contemporary accounts, it was very much one of the group and
provided distraction at the airbase during a time when young pilots’
lives were typically measured in terms of sortie numbers.
On May 16, 1943, Gibson led the squadron to attack the Mohne and
Eder dams in Germany in an effort to cripple that country’s industrial
strength. That same evening, the Labrador, whose name is now
considered racially offensive, was accidentally run over and killed at
the station. The incident was kept from the flight members for fear of it
being interpreted as an ill omen.
All of which raises the question: should we be sanitising the past?
Or, perhaps, should we be learning from it in order to forge the
future?
Alwyn Brice, Editor
www.airlogisticsinternational.com August 2020 5
/www.airlogisticsinternational.com