Somehow, they’ve found another way to make flying worse.
Southwest Airlines is experimenting with having cabin cleaners come on their planes between flights to clean ONLY the premium, extra legroom seat areas of the aircraft. The rest will remain gross and germy.
If that sounds crazy to you, you’re not alone. A flight attendant union leader says it’s like the upper class on the Titanic “having cigars and sipping brandy,” while passengers “below deck” don’t even get their seats cleaned.
If you’re imagining walking down the aisle, and the rows being increasingly cluttered with trash, kids’ snacks, and sticky spills . . . it won’t be THAT bad, probably.
Southwest is one of the few airlines that doesn’t usually have cleaners come onboard between flights. Instead, flight attendants “tidy up” anything left behind. The turnover time is faster, but the cabins get less clean.
So adding cleaners to wipe things down with actual cleaning products is something NEW. Even if it’s just for the premium rows.
The flight attendants’ union doesn’t like this any more than you do. They think that if there are cleaners, they should hit everything.
The problem is: There’s not much down-time to clean . . . and the cleaners on other airlines don’t get enough time to do a great job either.