International
Text books and face masks, Europe’s children return to school
PARIS (Reuters) – Tens of millions of pupils returned to school in France, Poland and Russia on Tuesday, their rucksacks loaded with exercise books, geometry sets and, for many, face masks to protect them from a resurgent coronavirus pandemic.
Hand cleansing stations, social distancing and staggered play time will become the new normal as countries across Europe seek ways to get children back into the classroom safely and their economies functioning once again.
But they do so at a time when infections rates are spiralling upwards across the continent and there are widespread concerns that the return to schools and offices, the autumn flu season and excess mortality in winter could drive a second wave.
In France, Spain and elsewhere, some parents and teachers’ unions have voiced concern at plans for reopening classrooms as the spread of the virus gathers renewed pace.
“I prefer her to be going to school,” Laure Gevaert said as she dropped off her daughter Emma at her junior high school in Saint-Leu-d’Esserent, north of Paris. “It’s not easy home-schooling, and I have to work too.”
Even so, the threat of a second wave was alarming, she said.
“If there are cases at the school, that will worry me. I won’t send her in.”
Countries are taking different approaches to minimize contagion in schools. Spain’s 17 regions are responsible for their own back-to-school plan, though they must follow national regulations such as mandatory masks for children over six.
At the Immaculate and St. Joseph of the Mountain center, a Catholic school in Ronda, southern Spain, staff were spacing out desks and preparing hand sanitizer posts.
“We’re doing everything we can,” said the school’s director, Mother Marta, dressed in a starched white habit and white mask.
In Russia, pupils returned as the country’s coronavirus case tally exceeded 1 million.
“I’m not afraid of COVID of course, but I follow the restrictions,” Daniil Ivanenko, a 9th-grade student, told Reuters in western Moscow.
Plan B?
The French government said the crisis must not put citizens’ lives on hold, while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was crucial schools in England re-open this week. Schools in Scotland reopened earlier this month, with face masks mandatory for secondary school students except in classroooms.
Johnson is under pressure to show he can oversee a full-time return to school after his Conservative government made a hash of how school-leavers would be graded for exams that were canceled during the lockdown.
But unions have complained of chaos caused by last minute changes and stressed the importance of a ‘Plan B’ should a second wave hit.
“You don’t need a crystal ball to see that local restrictions will be a feature of the autumn and winter,” said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of head teachers’ union NAHT.
At the height of coronavirus lockdowns globally in April, some 1.5 billion children were affected by school closures, according to UNESCO. School closures widened the inequality gap, experts have said.
The risk of coronavirus transmission within schools depends on what is happening in the local community as well as the safety measures put in place, according to epidemiologists.
Global data on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic shows that children and young people make up only 1-2% of cases of COVID-19 worldwide. Most reported infections in children are mild or asymptomatic, with few recorded deaths.
“Schools operate in communities, they don’t operate in isolation. So the big thing that we look for is what does transmission look like in the community where those schools operate,” World Health Organization epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said Geneva.
Germany and Sweden may offer some reassurance.
In Germany, where schools have been reopening since early August, the proportion of coronavirus cases among Under 20s has remained stable. In Sweden, keeping schools open through the pandemic did not lead to higher infection rates among students compared with neighbouring Finland, where schools temporarily closed.
“We want to see children returning to school and people returning to the workplace, but we want to see it done safely. At the same time, no country can just pretend the pandemic is over,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Reporting and photo: Reuters
Emirates has kick-started its plans to upgrade the entire interior cabins of 120 Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 aircraft – two of the largest commercial aircraft types in service today.
This ambitious project, representing a multi-billion dollar investment to ensure Emirates’ customers “fly better” for the coming years, officially commences in November and is managed entirely by Emirates’ Engineering team.
The target is to completely retrofit four Emirates aircraft from start to finish every month, continuously for over 2 years. Once the 67 earmarked A380s are refreshed and back in service, 53 777s will undergo their facelift. This will see nearly 4,000 brand new Premium Economy seats installed, 728 First Class suites refurbished and over 5,000 Business Class seats upgraded to a new style and design when the project is complete in April 2025.
In addition, carpets and stairs will be upgraded, and cabin interior panels refreshed with new tones and design motifs including the iconic ghaf trees which are native to the UAE.
No other airline has handled a retrofit of this magnitude in-house, and there’s no blueprint for such an undertaking. Therefore Emirates Engineering teams have been planning and testing extensively, to establish and streamline processes, and identify and address any possible snags.
Trials began on an A380 in July, where experienced engineers literally took each cabin apart piece-by-piece and logged every step. From removing seats and panelling to bolts and screws, every action was tested, timed and mapped out. Potential impediments to completing the installation of Emirates’ new Premium Economy Class or the retrofit of the remaining three cabins in just 16 days were flagged and documented for expert teams to review and address.
As part of the programme, new purpose-built workshops will be set up at Emirates Engineering to repaint, re-trim and re-upholster Business and Economy Class seats with new covers and cushioning. First Class suites will be carefully disassembled and sent to a specialised company to replace the leather, arm rests and other materials.
From the trials, Engineers discovered several unexpected solutions for instance: that existing food catering trucks could be easily repurposed to move parts destined for refurbishment from the aircraft to the workshop for their refresh, as these vehicles had doors of the right width and offer sufficient space.
Until the retrofit programme starts in earnest in November, a cross-disciplinary team has been assembled to regularly review the planning process, address any issues, and track updates on various aspects of the project such as procurement, staffing, and training.
Emirates’ new Premium Economy cabin class, which offers luxurious seats, more legroom, and a service to rival many airlines’ business offering, is currently available to Emirates customers travelling on popular A380 routes to London, Paris, Sydney. More customers will be able to experience the airline’s new Premium Economy cabins starting from year end, as the retrofit programme picks up momentum.
Eleanor has been named as one of the top 10 concierge software providers globally.
Based on accurate, timely reviews from real users, the HotelTechAwards rank the world’s best hotel software firms and products and it also provides hoteliers direct access to a growing network of hotel technology professionals and decision-makers.
“The guest experience is the cornerstone of our platform. Our unified resort wide solution, Eleanor, has been built for resorts off the back of many years working in the industry and addresses the needs of both Sales and Marketing departments and perhaps just as importantly, the operational requirements of the team on the ground at the property. The days of resorts working with disjointed systems are now behind us,” says Darren Caple, co-founder and CEO.
“We are on a mission to make the guest’s resort experience as easy and as frictionless as possible. Whereas traditional providers in the market have come at this purely from a guest communication perspective, our background in resorts has allowed us to combine this basic requirement with the streamlining of operational processes. The result is truly a resort wide solution that removes the need for countless different systems to be deployed.
Eleanor allows resorts to deliver consistent, superior service levels to guests across all stages of their journey with contactless features helping to alleviate sensitive touch-points in the post pandemic period. More than 30 properties in the Maldives use our Eleanor platform to help butlers and guest services elevate the guest experience. These properties are seeing an increase in incremental revenue by over 30% and operational efficiencies of 600+ man hours per month. We are also beginning to roll out the platform in some Caribbean properties!”
Eleanor is making waves in the hospitality industry by pushing the conventional limits of what a resort guest app can achieve through its unique ability to facilitate direct bookings for services and activities. The traditional ‘request to book’ feature that is common amongst almost all other hotel apps is removed by a power booking and operational platform sitting at the heart of the solution that covers all the resorts’ departments. It’s this module which realises enormous operational benefits and insights for the resort.
“We, at Eleanor, are humbled and honoured that our clients have provided such positive reviews. Feedback from our clients, partners and hoteliers are incredibly valuable for us and we will continue to improve our offering and services”, said Caple.
To celebrate this success, Eleanor is currently offering resorts a free one month trial, together with free setup and training and discounted monthly fees.
Eleanor, founded in 2018 and has its headquarters in the United Kingdom. Created from over 15 years of hands-on expertise, Eleanor allows resorts to deliver consistent, superior service levels to its guests across all stages of their journey with contactless features helping to alleviate sensitive touch-points in the post pandemic period. Eleanor also helps to unlock operational efficiencies and boost incremental revenue and guest loyalty.
Hotel Tech Report’s Best Concierge Software 2022 Runner Up, reviewed as a preferred and reliable hotel software product by the global hotelier community.
For more information, visit www.eleanorapp.com.
Emirates, the world’s most global airline, is seeking talented people with a passion for service to join its award-winning cabin crew team.
As air travel returns with a vengeance, the airline’s recruiters are busy meeting and hiring candidates in 30 cities from now until the end of June. In this latest drive, Emirates’ teams will travel from Australia to the UK, and dozens of European cities in between, as well as Cairo, Algiers, Tunis and Bahrain.
Abdulaziz Al Ali, Emirates Group’s Executive Vice President for Human Resources said: “There’s no more exciting airline than Emirates for anyone interested in a flying career, and we’ve received tremendous interest since we began our recruitment drive for cabin crew in November.”
“While parts of the application process are done online, we always make the effort to meet our candidates in person whenever we can, and that is why our Talent Acquisition team is doing a whirlwind 30-city tour over the next 6 weeks to assess prospective candidates.”
Emirates’ truly global cabin crew team represent 160 nationalities, reflecting its customer mix and international operations in over 130 cities on six continents.
All Emirates crew are based in the exciting cosmopolitan city of Dubai, with company-provided accommodation, tax-free salary and more benefits.
Interested candidates can read more about the Emirates cabin crew role, and apply online at: https://www.emiratesgroupcareers.com/cabin-crew/
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