Modern civil aviation provides unprecedented opportunities for the spread of epidemic/pandemic infectious disease. There is a pressing need to implement infection control in aviation, ranging from effective quarantine to protocols for sanitizing/decontaminating the airliner cabin. The latter is the focus of the proposed research, building on a major US initiative, led by the coordinator of this proposal. This initiative focused on implementing whole airliner cabin sanitization/decontamination technologies that are efficacious, safe and practicable in civil aviation and culminated in a highly successful full-scale demonstration using a wide-body airliner. The goal of the proposed research is to enable transition of the coordinator’s work in the USA to the European context. The proposal responds to the impact on the efficacy, safety and practicality of airliner decontamination of the engineering, operational and regulatory differences between the USA and Europe. The proposed research is highly multidisciplinary and truly unique — the coordinator’s US work represents the first successful use of chemical decontamination for the entire airliner cabin. By enabling the benefits of decontamination to be realised in an European context, the proposed project will have a major impact on the state-of-the-art. The project is highly timely and relevant, given current concerns over the potential for pandemics. The proposed project enables the re-integration of a world-class, highly experienced European researcher, with a broad base of cross-disciplinary accomplishments and professional recognition, who is currently leading a major US National Centre of Excellence on the Transportation Environment. The project is designed to stimulate collaborative activities between Europe and the USA and is fully aligned with the coordinator’s forthcoming senior, long-term role at a major UK host organisation, the University of Leeds, so as to provide a strong knowledge transfer path.