Disinfection and disinsection are not the same thing

Disinfection kills microbes and nobody requires it. Disinsection kills insects and a dozen countries require it under international treaty. They are two letters apart, they get confused constantly, and only one of them can get an aircraft turned around at a foreign port.

If you fly internationally, the one to be sure about is the second.

The definitions are not conventions, they are treaty text

Both words are defined in Article 1 of the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations (2005), which is binding international law rather than guidance.

Disinsection is defined as the procedure whereby health measures are taken to control or kill the insect vectors of human diseases present in baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods and postal parcels.

Disinfection is defined as the procedure whereby health measures are taken to control or kill infectious agents on a human or animal body surface or in or on baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods and postal parcels by direct exposure to chemical or physical agents.

Insects versus microbes. That is the whole distinction, and it is written down.

Disinsection is a requirement, and it belongs to the destination

The US Department of Transportation maintains the list of foreign requirements, and the structure is worth knowing because it changes what has to happen on your aircraft.

There are two accepted approaches. Aerosol spraying of the cabin with an insecticide while passengers are aboard, or treatment of the aircraft’s interior surfaces with a residual insecticide while passengers are not aboard.

Countries that DOT lists as requiring aerosol spray with passengers aboard on all inbound flights include Ecuador for Galapagos and interisland, Grenada, Guyana, India, Kiribati, Madagascar, Panama, Seychelles, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Zimbabwe. Countries using the residual method include Australia, Barbados, Chile, Cook Islands, Fiji, Jamaica and New Zealand. A further group applies requirements selectively or seasonally, including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, Thailand and others.

Two cautions. That list changes and DOT revises the page without an obvious revision date, so check it against your route before you depart rather than trusting a blog, including this one. And note that this is a requirement of where you are going, not of where you are leaving from. The United States does not impose disinsection on inbound flights.

Cabin disinfection is not required by anyone, and it is still regulated

This is the part that trips people up. There is no rule anywhere requiring you to disinfect a cabin. What is regulated is the product, and the way it is used.

EPA registers antimicrobial products under FIFRA. That registration is a license for the specific claims on that specific label, based on efficacy and safety data submitted for that formulation. EPA’s own definitions are precise:

• A disinfectant destroys or irreversibly inactivates bacteria, fungi and viruses, but not necessarily bacterial spores.
• A sanitizer reduces the bacterial population by significant numbers but does not destroy or eliminate all bacteria.
• A sterilant destroys or eliminates all forms of microbial life.

Those are three different things and they are not interchangeable in a sentence, even though they are used interchangeably in marketing constantly.

Using a registered product contrary to its label is a FIFRA violation. So contact time matters. If the label says the surface must remain visibly wet for four minutes and a crew wipes it dry after forty seconds, that was not a disinfection. It was a wipe down with an expensive product, and it is also, technically, a misuse.

What EPA List N is, and what it is not

List N is EPA’s list of disinfectants expected to kill SARS-CoV-2 when used according to label directions. It still exists and is still published.

EPA says on the page itself that inclusion on List N does not constitute an endorsement, and that other disinfectants may meet the criteria. So a product being on List N tells you it has a coronavirus claim. It tells you nothing about whether it is safe on aircraft materials.

The FAA said as much directly in Safety Alert for Operators bulletin NM-20-17: although EPA publishes a list of disinfectants effective at inactivating COVID-19, the majority of the products listed may not be suitable for use on aircraft, except in very limited and localized application.

The FAA’s position is that it is the manufacturer’s call

The same FAA bulletin says any disinfectants used should be compatible with the aircraft and approved by the aircraft manufacturer for use on board, and that failure to follow the manufacturer’s recommended practices can lead to airworthiness issues. It notes that ethyl alcohol based disinfectants can cause crazing on windows and window dust covers and can damage thermoplastics, and it lists the risks of over-application as corrosion, embrittlement, increased flammability and electrical short circuit.

EASA takes the same position, and IATA puts the responsibility on the operator: it is the airline’s responsibility to ensure correct procedures and chemical products, based on the manufacturer’s recommendations, and any products used need to be approved by the airline.

So there is no regulator approving cleaning chemicals for your aircraft. There is a manufacturer’s manual, and there is you. We wrote the full version of that in no cleaning product is FAA approved.

What this means practically

• If you are flying to a country that requires disinsection, that is a compliance item on your trip sheet, handled with the approved method and documented. It is not something a detailer solves at the last minute.
• If you want a cabin disinfected, that is a service, not a compliance obligation, and it should be done with a product the airframe manufacturer’s guidance supports, at the label’s contact time, on the surfaces it is appropriate for. That is how we run it.
• Nobody should be fogging alcohol through a cabin and calling it either one.

If you are unsure which of the two you actually need for a given trip, ask us. It is a two minute conversation and getting it wrong is not.