Lufthansa is testing less cleaning in coach on 20 short-haul routes while continuing to clean business class between flights. The move turns cabin cleaning into a class divide, with premium passengers still getting tidy seats while travelers in back may find dirtier lavatories and trash in the seat back pockets.
Now that Southwest Airlines sells seat assignments, and has extra legroom seats, they’re running a test of cleaning only the premium seats between flights. That’s actually extra cleaning because Southwest flight attendants used to be the only ones ‘tidying’ the cabin during the day.
German flag carrier Lufthansa, though, is actually testing doing less cleaning on short flights – but only in coach. It’s the same general idea as Southwest – premium seats will be the clean seats – but in Lufthansa’s case this would be accomplished by cleaning coach less, not cleaning premium more.
The test excludes Lufthansa’s Frankfurt and Munich hubs, and excludes ‘remain overnight’ aircraft – they will still do overnight cleans. Lufthansa is trying to save money on cleaners at its outstations. This, though, strikes me as odd because it may mean more time on the ground between flights even though it is part of the airline’s “broader Turnaround efficiency project”: [Lufthansa] wants to see whether it can save time and money when planes are only lightly soiled. The airline is also testing whether, at some outstations, it can use two cleaners for ten minutes instead of four cleaners for five minutes.
There’s already been some negative feedback to the test. They had planned to stop “arranging seat belts neatly in Economy” but that decision has been reversed. If the test goes as the airline hopes it will be rolled out broadly and made a permanent change.
Now, it’s normal to do less cleaning between flights than overnight. Airlines try to schedule 45 minutes or less between flights, including boarding and deplaning. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for cleaners.
However, in the U.S., even flight turns under 60 minutes need lavatory cleanings according to the National Institutes of Health.
And it’s highly unusual to separate out cleaning by class of service, with premium cabins still getting full cleaning and passengers in back left with filth in their seat back pockets. They aren’t even saving labor time in this test (with 20 total labor minutes allocated to cleaning as before).
While the headline is clickbait, I do tend to agree that ‘cleanings’ should be sporadic on short haul flights.
Why? Because think of a train. I am very confident that when I board Amtrak from Philly to Penn Station, no one is cleaning my seat from the passenger that just left.
Why should airline seats be any different?
Just have one person go through and clean up obvious spills/dirt, and then have a crew do an overnight cleaning?
-Jon
If everyone would throw out all their trash, etc. on the planes (and trains) , then the cleaning staff could actually clean the plane (train) better in the little time they have-on the plane- everyone should have a clean space- most of us pay much more to fly than those on commuter trains-