Filthy Airline Travel
 

It's not our imagination! Planes are yucky!

Here's an interesting article (tiny url link) in today's NYT.

http://tinyurl.com/yfbjf3

The artcile's contents, unfortunately, comes as no surprise to me. I have always thought they were flying germs/grime/yuck containers.

Brings anitbacterial wipes and waterless hand cleaner and hope for the best.

Debi

Filthy in another way too. Recently I reached into the pocket and found two wadded up papers. I opened and read them. Some guy was clearly drafting a letter and threw the drafts into the seat pocket. Apparently he was getting ready to meet some gal again and the letter was filled with "vivid" descriptions of what worked last time and what he wanted to "try" this time. It was a lot more interesting reading than the usual "American Way" magazine.

WOW they never leave ME anything like THAT to read in my seat pocket!

Okay, this is terrible to admit, but once on a long, boring flight the person in front of me was writing a very um, personal, love letter that I could clearly see. It was a lot more interesting than the Sky Whatever magazine.

Are they as "yucky" as some people's cars?

Article was in our Sunday paper. Airlines are cutting way back, no meals so people bring in bags of food themselves and leave it whereever, the airlines make more money in the air, not sitting on the ground waiting for the cleanup crew to clean the plans. They use to have several people cleaning and now have cut back and only have 1 maybe two people, depending on size of plane. If people flying would take care of their garbage instead of putting it wherever, I have flown enough to know that they come around with garbage bags to collect, so no reason to have litter stuck in the pockets where the magazines are etc. JMO

Reading "trash" from the trash. I think I know that author! Tres tres exciting!

You've got a good point there, Dukey.

But I will say that Mr. STW is a clean car freak. You could eat off the seats and feel pretty darn good about doing so, lol.

I think I might pull out a latex glove the next time I place my hand into the airplane pocket, lol. :D

What grosses me out is seeing people walk down to the bathroom barefoot. Not only are the ailes filthy but the bathroom floor? You know what is on that floor. Giant cringe...=P~

TTess, while flying home from our honeymoon I was sick with Giardia and had to use the bathroom every 5 minutes. I literally monopolized the lavatory for the whole 8 hour flight.

Anyway, at some point my flip flops had come off and kicked around and I had to go so bad I went without.

There was a drunk man on the plane across from me and he'd just come out of the restroom. I went in and there was urine ALL OVER the floor, cold, sticky and too late for me to do anything about.

I'll never ever ever use a plane's lavatory barefoot again. <b> Ickk!!!</b>

I don't remember ever feeling airplanes were clean. And airplane bathrooms are so disgusting due to the sloppy habits of passengers I don't even want to think about it.

If airline passengers would help keep airplanes clean especially on long flights how much nicer and healthier it would be for all flyers. But like qas station restrooms, department store restrooms etc., the public doesn't really make an effort to think about the next person that will be using the facility.

I might also add that the one year I got involved in the real estate business..plus many decades in the property management business..the way a lot of people do NOT keep their bathrooms clean goes beyond description.

STW, the joys of flying, NOT.

I saw so many people go to the restroom with no shoes or socks on on our long flight to Hawaii. I was totally grossed out. I try to touch as little as possible with my flesh...Uggh.

This article brings to bear something I have thought about since the airlines quit serving meals. Do they actually save money??? It seems to me that what money they save by not serving a token meal must be eaten up by the amount of trash and garbage generated by take-on.

Plus, it is so disgusting. Last year I was smashed into a window seat (because of a last minute ticket change), and the woman in the middle seat had several huge bags of snack foods jammed into the pocket and between her legs. I was trapped, and if there had been an emergency I would have had to leap over her bags of food.

Then as soon as the plane took off she pulled out a foot and a half-long submarine sandwich that stunk to high heaven. It was disgusting. Wouldn't the airline have been better off serving a small meal, then having the clean-up contained??? I would think so............

chickgeek, flying home to Sacramento from Atlanta a fellow (in a tank top and shorts) ate two sandwiches both obviously filled with onions. He was across the aisle from me. The odor was soooo disgusting. Not a great flight LOL.

Good point,chicgeek, however even when they were still serving food, it had deteriorated so much in quality that many people were already bringing on their own purchases.

I have noticed a marked increase in the downfight filthiness of the lavatories over the last decade or so. It is hard to figure out. Were people neater and tidier 15 or so years ago?? Makes no sense, unless someone used to intermittently clean up in flight??

It's odd, but I was recently remarking how much CLEANER the lavatories have become. I used to cringe if I had to use one at all. Lately on AA, I notice attendants constantly popping in, and whenever I go, everything is neat as a pin and even smells good. Is that something only AA takes notice of?

I would never dream of walking in any public restroom, including on a plane, barefoot - that's just yucky! I spent too long in retail cleaning out dressing rooms to think that a public restroom would be clean.

I also have never utilized the seat pockets because of all the horror stories I hear about them - guess I have chosen wisely.

Patrick, glad your recent AA flts have been clean. We travel almost exclusively on AA, mostly on the Bos-Lax and Lax-Bos flts and I have noticed that the floors are often sprinkled with many drops of what I fear is *not* water and have an aroma to match my assumption of the content of the drops....I also think that they often use a plane that they just turn around, ie it comes in from LA and they turn it around and return it to LA, within an hour or so. Maybe that is why the ones I have gotten are so unappealing. They are rarely on the ground long enough to get the kind of cleaning that should be done.

If you ever want to write a book on the world's filtiest toilets, just fly Air India.

I am going to go throw up now thinking about it. :(