Emirates Drywash Saves 11m Litres of Water Yearly

A new drywash cleaning programme introduced by Emirates airline in early 2016 is saving up to 11 million litres of water every year to clean its fleet of more than 260 aircraft, said the airline.

Emirates uses the ‘aircraft drywash ’ technique to clean its aircraft.

From its Dubai headquarters located in the heart of a desert city, the airline said its aircraft drywash systems uses “little to no water” as compared to conventional washing regimens that consume thousands of litres per wash.

Ahmad Safa, Emirates Senior Vice President — Engineering Support Services, told Gulf News that the airline is doing everything in its power to conserve water as a good sustainable environmental practice.

“Emirates is very conscious of our responsibility towards the environment. We are constantly looking at ways through which we can reduce the impact our operations have on the environment.

Using the aircraft drywash technique helps us save millions of litres of water every year and this is important for a number of reasons — the most important being that water is a limited environmental resource and that we have to be careful in its usage,” said Safa.

“By implementing water-saving techniques we are building on our cumulative efforts across various business divisions to reduce our environmental footprint. “

Over the years, the industry standard to clean aircraft using pressurised water between four to five times every year uses on average more than 11,300 litres of water to clean one Airbus A380 aircraft and more than 9,500 litres of water to clean a Boeing 777 aircraft every time.

To forego the need to spray wash the large fuselages and wings of its aircraft, Emirates since early last year has introduced a liquid cleaner that it applies manually and then allows to dry.

Similar to a car wax, the dried film is then wiped off and polished by up to 15 staff over a 12-hour cleaning session for the A380 and nine hours for the smaller Boeing 777 body.

Read more: Gulf News

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Taxonomy

• Resource Management
• Water Footprint
• Water Footprint Research
• Integrated Water Management
• Energy Efficiency
• Consumption
• Energy Efficiency
• Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)