Aircraft Disinsection in San Carlos, CA: San Carlos Airport (SQL)

About San Carlos Airport

San Carlos is the Peninsula’s general aviation home, a single-runway field under the San Francisco approach shelf with one of the busiest light-aircraft ramps in Northern California. The wealth around it flies: owners here step up through turboprops into jets kept at SQL or nearby, and international trips are planned from kitchen tables in Atherton and Menlo Park.

On the field at SQL

SQL lies 2 miles northeast of San Carlos, California, 6 feet above sea level. Its longest runway, 12/30, measures 2,621 by 75 feet, asphalt. The field has an FAA control tower. Rabbit Aviation Services operate FBOs here, and we come to the aircraft at any of them. A pre-embarkation treatment here is timed to your boarding and finished before anyone steps aboard.

Where the aircraft disinsection requirement comes from

No US authority requires disinsection on departure. The obligation is created by the arriving country, which expects a treated aircraft and a certificate. Pre-embarkation treatment performed at SQL, the last port before a non-stop international arrival, is how operators meet it without spraying an occupied cabin at the far end.

From SQL the requirement is mostly a Pacific one: Australia and New Zealand require disinsection on every arriving international aircraft, and the Cook Islands, Fiji and the Solomon Islands require it too. Many itineraries from San Carlos stop in Hawaii, which then becomes the last US port and the place for pre-embarkation treatment; non-stop departures are treated here at SQL. Australia, New Zealand, Chile, French Polynesia appear on the list as well.

The aircraft disinsection process on the SQL ramp

Nothing about the SQL treatment disrupts your departure. We time it to your boarding, coordinate access and position with the FBO, and treat the empty aircraft, cabin, flight deck and holds, to the WHO method once catering and cleaning are finished. The aircraft ventilates for the required wait, the certificate goes aboard, and passengers step onto a treated aircraft without ever seeing the process.

SQL at a glance

Countries that require disinsection, served from SQL

From SQL: Cook Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, French Polynesia, and the rest of the destinations we serve. The full table of aircraft disinsection requirements by country covers every destination we have verified for SQL departures. Australia and New Zealand carry operator paperwork we help with; if either is on a San Carlos itinerary, start early.