Southwest Is Testing Cleaning Only Premium Seats Between Flights — A Flight Attendants Union Leader Says It’s ‘Titanic’ Class Service

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.

Airline flight attendants union board member and safety chair Chris Click posted a video for crewmembers expressing concern about a trial the airline is doing to have cleaners come on board planes between flights but not clean the whole aircraft. He says he received a memo from the airline on Tuesday “about the experiment they’re doing with cleaners coming on board and cleaning the airplane.”

Click likens this to the upper class on the Titanic “having cigars and sipping brandy and telling their stories of their untold fortunes” while passengers “below deck” don’t get their seats cleaned.

[T]he company thinks it’s okay to only do the premium seating cleaning. I find that, and I liken it to the movie Titanic… And I feel like that’s the conditions they’re creating here at Southwest…

I know Southwest says, oh, we don’t have class service. This is class service. This is first class seating. And now that you’re bringing cleaners on board to provide a different cleaning product up front than you are in the back, this is definitely class service. ..it’s an insult to the passengers that aren’t in ELR seats that they’re left with just what we can tidy. And look, there’s a big difference between tidying the airplane and cleaning…

So up front, you’ve got these super clean airplanes. In the back, you’ve got half-hearted, tidied airplanes. The passengers are going to come on board. They’re going to see it.

And when this gets out and becomes prevalent, when passengers see what’s going on, they’re going to be very upset. And who are they going to turn to about these complaints? They’re going to turn to the working flight attendants that are on the airplane.

Flight attendants at Southwest are expected to tidy the cabin between flights. They pick up visible trash and cross he seatbelts. Unlike competitors, Southwest hasn’t generally had cleaners come on planes between flights. This makes turning the planes quicker. They spend less time on the ground and more time in the air, but the planes don’t get as clean. Flight attendants aren’t expected to reach into seat back pockets, for instance.

Of course, other airlines with contract cleaners often don’t give them enough time to work, so those planes may not get much cleaner either.

Naturally the union would prefer if cleaners did the entire aircraft – if flight attendants got full pay with fewer duties. So they’re criticizing Southwest for only picking up part of the work. It’s striking to hear him call the cabin tidying efforts of Southwest flight attendants “half-hearted.”

I certainly take the implied point with this trial that people paying extra for their seats aren’t getting the product they expect when it’s dirty. And I understand that Southwest doesn’t want to keep planes on the ground longer than they have to. As it is, checked bag fees mean more passengers bringing bags on board, and more passengers having to gate check bags – which means boarding takes longer than it used to.

Still, they have a point about the once highly egalitarian Southwest losing its soul if they’re only willing to clean the seats where passengers who pay the most sit. And it’s families with young children who tend to sit in back, rather than paying for extra legroom seats, and those are the spaces that tend to get messiest.