Flight Attendant News

Quite a few flight attendants I know are germaphobes. No wonder! Have a look at what this New York Times article, reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, has to say about dirty airplanes:

Airlines in the United States, which have been paring their fleets to cut costs, are flying their jets fuller than ever - and some of them are just a little too crowded not to be smelly. After dispensing with the expense of most meal service, airlines invited passengers to bring their own food aboard, and many planes now land littered with a smorgasbord of wrappers and leftovers.

Once on the ground, there are fewer employees to tidy up, thanks to widespread layoffs. And planes, which make money only when they fly, sit at the gate for shorter periods, often making cleanup a rush job.

"You put your hand in the seatback pocket and there's an open McDonald's ketchup container in there," said Joe Brancatelli, a frequent flier who runs an advice Web site for business travelers. Tidiness has declined in recent years, he said. "The problem is they've made so many cuts."

When cleaning is outsourced, "it's another part of the airline business that goes to the lowest bidder," he said.

And when outside food was invited aboard, routines for taking care of trash went awry. "A lot of inconvenient garbage," Brancatelli said. "The airlines can't control it. They can't plan for it."

The article points out that the airplanes flown by carriers in bankruptcy sometimes are dirtier, for financial reasons. The writer offers this example:

While the U.S. industry standard for deep-cleaning a jetliner - a process similar to having your car professionally detailed - is roughly every 30 days, Delta had let its schedule lapse to every 15 to 18 months. That is akin to cutting your daily shower back to once every couple of weeks. Just months after Delta began installing new interiors, including pricey leather seats, Canavan and his staff were surprised to find that some of the planes were already filthy. Thus began a humbling airlinewide effort to become neater.

Two cleaning contractors were fired for slipshod performance. Deep cleaning - an intense and precisely scripted process of brushing, scrubbing and vacuuming - now occurs at least every 30 days on Delta planes, bringing Delta up to par. A crew of auditors checks up on the cleaners.

The article cites some statistics from J.D. Power and Associates, a market research company that surveys passengers about airline cleanliness (among other things) and then rates the carriers based on survey results.

Delta came in third in the J.D. Power survey this year, behind JetBlue and Southwest. At the bottom of the survey, which ranked only North American airlines, were Northwest and US Airways.

The article notes that the FAA doesn't set cleanliness standards for aircraft.

Passengers have the occasional unclean encounter on an airplane, but hygiene shortcomings may be most apparent to airline workers.

One reason that JetBlue and Southwest, two low-cost carriers, won high marks is that their planes are newer. Also, though they tend to have fewer ground employees than airlines like United Airlines and American Airlines, they have company cultures that encourage flights attendants, gate agents and, at JetBlue, even pilots to tidy up.

Delta, with an aging fleet, says its own surveys show that passengers rate the food tastier, the seat roomier and the flight prompter when the plane's interior is new and clean.

"If the seat has crumbs in it, then you're probably not doing your engine maintenance - that's how people think," said James Whitehurst, chief operating officer at Delta. "People are disgusted by dirty airplanes."

Yes, and the cabin crew are disgusted, too!

Read the whole article here: Pigsties in the sky get a cleaning - International Herald Tribune

Technorati Tags: airliners, airlines, cabin crew, flight attendants