FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP — Cleaning has been doubled at the Houghton County Memorial Airport as a precaution against the COVID-19 virus, Airport Manager Dennis Hext said Wednesday.

The airport is cleaning once in the morning and again in the afternoon, going from four hours of cleaning per day to eight, Hext said.

The airport is following guidance from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department (WUPHD).

If the airport received word of an incoming passenger with coronavirus symptoms, Hext said, the airport would isolate them as well as people who had been around them, then call the WUPHD and local hospitals for further guidance.

As has happened at airports nationwide, passenger counts are down sharply, Hext said. Recent flights have been operating at 15 to 20% of capacity, versus the 65 to 70% of an average March.

January and February had both been up substantially over last year, Hext said.

“Now with the coronavirus and everything, things are plummeting,” he said. “The economy was rolling along, and this just took the wind right out of the sails.”

As of now, United is continuing two flights a day to and from Chicago, Hext said.

“Anything is on the table, but nobody has contacted me to tell me we’re going to lose any service at that time,” he said.

Hext is asking passengers and visitors to the airport to follow CDC and WUPHD guidelines. People who are dropping passengers off or picking them up are asked to wait outside the airport.

“The fewer people hat we have in here, the better,” he said.