The Best Way to Clean Airport Restrooms

Airport restrooms tell a story. Clean, fresh smelling, fully stocked restrooms instill confidence. They let travelers know the airport is well run and say management cares about the travel experience. Those good feelings stick with passengers even after stepping out of the restroom.

And that has real world effects. One study found that passengers who are delighted with the overall airport experience spend more money on food, drinks, and retail. In fact, a 1% increase in overall satisfaction potentially leads to a 1.5% growth in total airport revenue.

Now imagine the narrative told by a dirty restroom. Even if the rest of the airport terminal is clean, that unpleasant experience will stick with a traveler. If it’s really bad they may avoid the airport altogether and choose a less convenient but cleaner option.

Airport Restroom Cleaning Challenges

Even with all the benefits, airport restroom cleaning remains challenging. Major barriers to clean public restrooms in airports include:

High foot traffic: Airport restrooms are busy all day and into the night. Finding time to refresh supplies, spot clean, and deep clean can present challenges for staff.

Staffing Issues: Recruiting, training, and retaining cleaning staff is always an issue. Cleaning staff turnover quickly, making recruiting and training both more difficult and more expensive.

Older building materials: Airport restrooms take a beating, and their materials show it. Dirt and bacteria settle into scratched, chipped materials staining them and making cleaning harder.

Attempting to maintain dirty airport restrooms with mops and rags amplify all these problems. These tools slow down the process, making spot cleaning harder and leaving restrooms closed longer. They also demand cleaners wield heavy mops and contort themselves into uncomfortable positions to get behind and between fixtures. This makes an already undignified, physically taxing job worse.

And there’s no way a mop or rag can remove dirt and bacteria from old, worn floors and fixtures. These tools can’t even remove dirt from brand new materials. But they are really good at pushing soils into porous grout, along with cracks and chips. If you’ve ever experienced a restroom that smells bad even after cleaning, it’s probably because staff used a mop.

Better Tools for Fast, Measurable Results

Better cleaning tools bring real world benefits to airport restroom cleaning. Advanced technology, like a No-Touch Cleaning® system, from Kaivac, solves every airport restroom cleaning challenges. And cleaning managers can even measure and confirm results.

The No-Touch Cleaning system removes dirt and germs, unlike a mop that just spreads the mess around. The tool works three times faster than old-fashioned mops and rags, while leaving surfaces dry. That allows restrooms to open faster so day staff can clean as completely as the night shift.

Dirt can’t hide in damaged materials or porous grout because the machine’s powerful vacuum is designed to suck the mess away. No-Touch Cleaning systems are so easy to use and produce such satisfying results that staff actually enjoy using the machine. And the KaiNect™ app lets cleaning managers track machine usage, ensuring staff are servicing restrooms correctly.

Let Kaivac help you solve your airport restroom cleaning challenges. Looking for a restroom cleaning checklist? Check out this free downloadable form.