Understanding airline and hotel laundries

 

Mr. Anil Shah, Senior Manager (Business support) at Linencraft unique perspective about laundry in the airlines and the hospitality industry!

 

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Laundry
 
June 9, 2022
 
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 Understanding airline and hotel laundries
 

Talk about airlines and the first thing that comes to mind is your favourite holiday destination. Travel can be a truly refreshing experience but there are a lot of factors that go into making it one. Take for example the airlines and the hotel - to make your experience seamless, they have to constantly work on food service, laundry and many more aspects that are seldom talked about. So we spoke to Mr. Anil Shah, Senior Manager (Business support) at Linencraft to understand the laundry aspect of these.

Through this conversation, we explored Anil’s unique perspective about laundry in the airlines and the hospitality industry!

At the outset, I’d like to ask how are linen care and the entire operation of hospitality laundry different from airline laundering?
The basic laundry process in both is not different. If anything is soiled, it has to be removed in both. The washing remains the same and the materials do not vary much. However, there are 2 major differences. The types of items being used in airlines and hotels are different. For example, there are volumes with more volume than weight. What is required is the right kind of equipment so that the turnover of the items is in time as required by the airlines. 

Also, when the aircraft goes into the air, they always have a weight limit. There is a stringent quality requirement in how linen is being processed. Unlike hospitality, airlines do not have the liberty of keeping a buffer. This must be taken care of. 

Many hotels still have in-house laundry and dry cleaning capabilities, what trends do you see in the demand for external laundry services?

What we saw in the pre-COVID or the COVID phase, is the customers who don’t have on-premise laundry and dry cleaning facilities have become very price sensitive. The COVID-19 has pushed them to relook at all the costs involved. This required that people look very closely at the cost factor. In many cases, this led to decisions that were not in line with linen care. However, what are seeing now is that there are some excellent industry professionals who work as good partners and they consider laundry as an extension of their operations. This is very heartening to know. I’ve recently come across people who are very conscious of what should be done. When these things prevail in the market, there are very good partnerships that can blossom in the Middle East.

At the moment, there is a lot of new hotels opening. The UAE has especially seen some very good room occupancy rates and there is high demand for outsourced laundry. People have seen that the costs are better managed when they are outsourcing laundry. A very meagre percentage of new hotels are investing in in-house laundry. Even if they have, they most have a valet laundry service. There is more and more reliance on outsourcing. 

anil shah

Tell us about the quality standards that are essential to maintain at commercial laundries
For any product, quality is essential. The industry is always going to remain price-sensitive. However, the important thing in maintaining the quality of any laundry, whether it is on-premise or off-premise is a structured approach for the quality. The structure has to be divided into basic processes, then process development, the quality, etc. Take for example washing - the optimum quality through the right chemical partners who can ensure that those programs are proactively managed. There are inspections and monitoring of the soil level of the items. So proactively managing the chemical formulas and taking help from the technical textile laboratories to further optimize the programs is the most important. 

Lastly, the ironing and folding part is very important. But what is even more important is that structured programs are in place and essentially training is most important to maintain quality. 

What is the biggest asset for a laundry service provider?
I would say, in a laundry, without any doubt, the biggest asset is its people. The people are the most valuable resources. This starts from the top. So the leadership and the values-driven in the organization sets the tone of the entire business and the operations. When there is visionary leadership, they are allowed to go ahead and make decisions, there is empowerment and as a consequence, excellence. 

Tell us about the training aspect. What measures are necessary to ensure that staff is well trained in the airline as well as hospitality laundry operations?

When operations are busy, the first thing that is ignored is training. Often people feel that training is a waste of time but I believe that it is completely essential. A structured approach to training is a must. First of all, the right SOPs should be in place for each process. People should know what is the best practice that will bring optimum quality and productivity. Without training, this is not possible. The right procedure should be in place. The review mechanism of this procedure should be in place too and people should be encouraged to undergo training. I strongly believe that if this is taken seriously, it will certainly yield the best results. 

Tell us about the new technologies that you would like to see being implemented in laundry operations.
I like to refer to technology as meaningful automation for this region. Most of the technology is developed and evolved in the West. Here we are talking about textile processing - whether it is airline or hospitality. Laundry technologies process textiles which are still the same for both industries. Of course, there are changes in the textile itself but they still need technology to be processed. Till the day textile exists, it will need to be cleaned and laundry technologies will be relevant.

As we know, there is a huge difference in the climatic conditions of the Middle East and the West. So many technologies including equipment, utility generation, chemical technology, and software that can use data to drive decisions and logistics are needed. But first of all, the technology should be meaningful. 

The way laundry has evolved, there is still a wide gap between what the manufacturers perceive and how the industry operates. For instance, there is a technology that enables the complete automation of bedsheet processing. The automation starts with the washing of the bedsheet till its ironing and folding. But the element of quality check is left out in this entire procedure. The manufacturers need to understand that like the quality check is automated for other industries, it needs to be there for laundry as well.

Then again, many times the demand from airlines or hospitality is zero-defect. Current technologies do not allow for zero-defect products in scalable operations. 

As far as utility generation is concerned, the cost of utility is rising higher and higher every day. We need to have a cheaper source of energy and highly cost-efficient equipment that can cope with reduced energy. There is also the option of opting for solar energy. Maybe those applications are available for other industries more, we are still waiting for those kinds of applications in the laundry industry. 

Next comes data. There is a need to track the movement of linen here and there. RFID is a very good technology that the region has been using. We seek further development in this technology. More than the development, affordability is the need. The laundry service providers currently in the market barely make their ends meet. How will they afford this expensive technology?

Then again, when textiles are used, they are prone to hard stains. So further development in the technology of chemicals where they can effectively deal with the hard stains without impacting the life of the textile or the environment much. This would be great for the laundry and laundry customers.

Logistically, it is very important to see how we transport linen across and how efficiently and cost-effectively it can be done. Software support is highly important. There are a lot of those applications that can be customized to how the laundry industry in the Middle East operates. This is one field where people can derive a lot of inspiration and make interesting packages. 

It is also very important for the laundry industry to have the right utilities like water, steam, and even the internet and data. In fact, without internet and data, laundry operations would come to a grinding halt. 

Lastly, tell us about the sustainability part. What measures are being taken in the industry to ensure sustainability? 

I think the industry is very conscious of the sustainability aspect. The Dubai Municipality and other government initiatives have played a key role in making people more aware of sustainability. 

Then again, earlier there was an option to look at the sustainability part. But with the rising cost of fuel and utilities, the coming times are going to be different. As we make our operations more sustainable in terms of utility consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, it will actually work in our favour. Laundry service providers are increasingly switching to solar power lighting and there is a huge potential for this alternative source of energy in the UAE. 

So far, people were using technologies where the water consumption was more than 20 litres per kilogram. Now they have no option but to consider the equipment that uses less water (the ideal would be 4 to 4 litres of water per kilogram). 


Last, but not least, we need to recycle as much as possible. I spoke about sustainability keeping textiles in mind. In Europe, people are increasingly turning towards textiles that use lesser natural resources. That is the direction our industry will definitely move towards.

Logistically, the vehicles are increasingly shifting towards low energy or electric. It is just a matter of time till the laundry industry switches to these alternatives. Some big players have already started. What they need at the moment is support. What I’ve seen in European laundries a few years back is that they only operate with solar power. The investment in solar power is huge. They get lots of subsidies and support from the government. I feel it is time now that a little support is provided to the laundry industry so that they can afford the alternative source of energy.