Horrific: Delta First Class Passenger Swiping TV With Bare Feet

A Delta Air Lines first class passenger can’t decide to watch on the carrier’s seat back entertainment system, so they keep flipping through the channeles. With. Their Feet.

Sitting in the first class bulkhead, they have one bare foot propped up against the bulkhead wall, and the other foot moves between the wall and swiping left with their toes.

I hope that they eventually found something to watch – and that the next passenger didn’t swipe with their hands. It just goes to show that you can take the passenger out of economy, but you can’t take economy out of the passenger.

Airlines should bring back Covid-era sanitizing wipes since they won’t clean planes between flights. In the meantime I hope this story convinces you to bring your own bleach wipes. And if there’s ever been a good argument for American Airlines’ decision to remove seat back entertainment screens from its domestic fleet, this has to be it.

One passenger reported traveling on a Delta flight with her younger brother this summer and snapped a photo of a woman with her bare feet propped up, rested against the sides of her seat back entertainment screen.

Here a business class passenger who flew Delta from Turks & Caicos to New York JFK last year shows tremendous dexterity using their feet to control the seat back entertainment system. A reader took video of this skill, and I can’t look away.

To prove that this behavior isn’t actually limited to Delta, one British Airways passenger says that when they set their business class seat up as a bed, and they’re lying down, they find it much more convenient to control their television with their feet even though they give you a remote control literally beside you. Oh, and they “like to be barefoot anyway, so why not?”

This is horrible. The airline isn’t sanitizing the screen between passengers. Passengers using their feet to change the channel on the inflight entertainment system are probably also too lazy to put their shoes back on to go to the lavatory. And the drops of wet on the floor there aren’t from the sink. Airlines can help here, and provide disposal slippers in business class to promote hygiene in the lavatory.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. If you consider yourself an elite, thoughtful traveler, there’s no reason not to select Delta for your next premium adventure.

  2. Another reason why BYOD on AA and AK make the most sense. The IFE screen are nasty if they even work (sorry DL your track record isn’t great lately). Heavy, expenseive to maintain, take up underseat storage, 99% need wired headsets, the list goes on and that doesn’t even cover that people touch them with feet and hands that have been who knows where. . . ICK!

    If AA finally ops in for free WIFI for Advantage Gold and higher (discounts for Advantage members) then they will surpass DL and UA (who is trying to become DL).

  3. Didn’t you already post about his? This video is probably about 5 years old now.

  4. Feet are dirty like cell phones. Never touch them. These people need to be told to put the feet down clean the screen and write the names down.

    I had my leg on a seat on a train in Switzerland and was told by the ticketer to remove

  5. I’m not saying its ok to use your feet to touch the screen but its always a good idea to wipe the toilet seat before you sit down in any public place. Apply this to your seat and simply wipe down the armrests and screen before using…

  6. I do not care which carrier is the worst or the best in the opinion of other people. But I also do not fly on any carrier without sanitizing wipes and a Lysol mini spray. I have seen people board who are dressed like a Lake Street Hooker with a very short skirt and no underwear. I have of course seen the bare feet on walls, seats and seat backs. Gross!

  7. Gary,

    We all know you are a germaphobe and have other quirks (wall mounted shampoo dispensers and full body scanners (for some strange reason)). However, your foot fetish is getting too much. Yes it is bad form and I would never put my bare feet (or feet with shoes on) up on a seat, IFE, wall, etc). However, it doesn’t impact you so why are you so upset? Who made you the “foot police”. Please man stick to stories on travel and award related matters and leave the personal conduct, quirky posts that get REALLY old and “national enquirer” stuff out. You are quickly driving me away to other blogs (like Lucky’s that has real info without most of your drama) although you likely don’t care.

  8. In fairness to the first class passenger. While gross, those first class bulkhead seats on delta are an absolute joke with far less legroom than on AA or UA (and should be reviled by every blogger out there). Maybe the feet needed to stretch 😉

  9. “you can take the passenger out if economy, buy you cannot take the economy out of the passenger”

    Really?!! I have news for you. Pigs come in all shapes and sizes… sometimes even under the cover of 1st Class.
    Oh, the humanity!!

  10. I don’t recall the details but there was a “study” showing the self service check in screen at the airport is the dirtiest place you are likely to touch during the airport journey. This was based on bacteria colony counts and types of bacteria. Don’t recall if the looked at viruses also. I sympathize with a germaphobe.

  11. Yeah, that’s a bit ewww. But are you so sure that person’s hands are any more clean than their feet? Did they wash their hands after using the bathroom? Did they eat something greasy at the food court before boarding? Did they touch the bottom of their shoes as they cleared TSA?

  12. 1.) United still hands out sanitizing wipes on (nearly) every flight as you board.

    2.) Flight attendants being safety professionals should correct people with bare feet on a plane. It isn’t safe.

  13. Disgusting for sure, perhaps even disturbing. Wouldn’t call it “horrific” though. “Horrific” is what Hamas did to innocent Israelites and what Israeli govt is now doing to innocent Palestinians.

  14. Just like animals, passengers can pick up several types of worms through their feet. And then spread disease in an area where they eat. This is why a more intelligent species will not go barefoot. So unless you want worms crawling out of your butt, wear shoes, sanitize and wash your hands.

  15. Geez, talk about an abuse of the English language. Let me give Gary a quick lesson on a proper use of the word *horrific* in a headline: “Horrific: Delta First Class Passenger Slaughters Seatmate with Fork in Row over Armrest”. Now, THAT is how you use the word “horrific”.

    In the case of this headline, “gross” would have been more appropriate. But, admittedly, it would have lacked that 14 year old teenage girl drama queen tone that Gary was surely going for.

  16. While enjoying premium travel on Delta Air Lines, most passengers are incapable of wiping and cleansing the brown fecal matter excreted from their anus while using their feet. Passengers using their feet when operating their passenger entertainment system solves the mystery of why brown-colored footprints are on the inflight entertainment screen.

  17. I suppose some modern forward thinking airline will adopt barefoot standards for flight crew and train flight crew to use their bare feet to serve food and beverages. As this barefoot SOP is soon coming, these barefoot passengers (whether profitable or DEI-protected) never will be NoFly listed. Which is why some people never leave home without AmEx, and I never enter an airport nor embark an aircraft without a full roll of Lysol (or other) cleaning wipes, to wipe down kiosk screens and my seat area.

  18. I find this disgusting. But I’m sure a person with a foot fetish loves it when people go barefoot in a plane!!

  19. Totally disgusting. What turns people into pigs on airplanes? Would she do this as a guest in another person’s home? This one is definitely a situation which deserves to be called out by a flight attendant.

  20. The positioning of the “feet propped on seat” woman suggests she may have been fantasizing about a gynecological exam.

  21. I bring sanitizing wipes with me on all flights.
    This was based on watching a mom, sitting next to me, change a diaper on the tray table many years ago. Never been the same since.

  22. I would have settled for less from View From The Wing today than publishing something that was posted on Twitter (now X) on July 15, 2019. If there is nothing better to publish then just skip one of your updates.

  23. I have sat in economy on most flights, and would never do that.

  24. There’s nothing horrific about this at all. That person’s feet aren’t any dirtier than their hands. Perhaps less so, since they’ve been in the passenger’s shoes, while their hands have been touching everything at the airport.

    Also, the world is dirty. If this bothers you, you don’t want to think about the piss that has been tracked from the lavatory floor throughout the floor of the aircraft.

  25. @BigTee I’d love to know what constitutes “DEI protected,” or what that has to do with people being disgusting in public…

  26. I haven’t visited this website in awhile and I know why. All of the recent articles seem very TMZ like. Bye.

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