WATCH: JetBlue’s New Robot Rolls Down Plane Aisles, Shining UV Lights on Seats to Kill Coronavirus

Screenshot via YouTube.

On Wednesday, JetBlue rolled out — literally — a new weapon in their efforts to fight the coronavirus on their airplanes: a robot that rolls down the aisles, shining a disinfecting ultraviolet light across the seats, floors, and other surfaces.

The 90-day pilot program started this week in JetBlue planes landing at JFK airport in New York and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in South Florida.

In a YouTube video demonstrating the robot, JetBlue announced they had entered into a partnership with Honeywell to pilot a “UV Cabin System” robot. The robot is in addition to other cleaning and sanitizing procedures JetBlue is conducting on their aircraft.

In about 10 minutes, the robot rolls down the aisles, sweeping long metal arms over the seats and shining UV-C light. Clinical studies have shown ultraviolet light to be effective in “significantly reducing certain viruses and bacteria, including SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, when properly used at certain levels,” according to NBC New York.

While ultraviolet light, specifically the short-wave UV-C type, has been shown to have a germicidal effect, it also poses potential health and safety risks, including skin damage like burns and premature aging and increased cancer risk. UV-C light in particular poses a risk of eye pain and damage in conditions like snow blindness or welder’s eye. Accordingly, using UV light to disinfect an airplane is a task better handled by a robot than a human.

Currently, JetBlue has eight of the Honeywell robots, which are about the size of a airline beverage cart. Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue’s president and COO, called the technology “a potential game changer” in the airline’s “layered approach” to safety during the pandemic, and a complement to other measures like health screenings for crew members, adding space, and other cleaning and disinfecting procedures.

Honeywell Aerospace president and CEO Mike Madsen said that the company had “ramped up production quickly on the UV Cabin System” as part of “a range of solutions to help make passengers more comfortable about flying.”

According to Madsen, JetBlue “took an immediate interest” in the UV robots when they demonstrated it for them a few weeks ago. He confirmed that JetBlue was the first to pilot them.

Travel website FlyerTalk also reported on JetBlue’s new robots, and noted that they were not the first airline to consider using UV light to clean planes. In 2016, Boeing developed an airplane lavatory equipped with UV light that would expose the surfaces between uses by passengers, “which would potentially kill 99.99 percent of pathogens and odors.” That lavatory is still in the prototype phase, however, and has yet to be installed in any Boeing aircraft.

Watch the video above, courtesy of JetBlue.