Dirty cabin

Mebuntu

Liveline today (not Joe Duffy in the chair).

Listener reported a filthy cabin on flight from Dublin to Izmir in Turkey. Rubbish everywhere and scummy toilets. CC apologised to him but they told him that the airline had changed its policy and does not clean aircraft between flights anymore. He also mentioned that he could have travelled to Bodrum instead with another airline for 30 Euro cheaper.

I thought it strange that the name of the airline wasn't mentioned but I am aware that Ryanair doesn't fly to Izmir (only Dalaman and Bodrum).

However, we got more clues. He said it was the only Irish airline that "flies direct to Izmir, that speaks a lot of Irish onboard" and he regularly flies the same airline to Heathrow.

Now I wonder who could that be ?..and why the name (on this occasion) was not allowed.

You can listen back here. https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21628345

Comhrá

The gentleman deserves a mention for best 1st world problem aired on Da Liveline in recent times.

jucylucy

Sounds like a MARIO sketch🤪go on go on.....terrible Joe📺📺

bigar

Perhaps Aer Lingus is a sponsor or major advertiser and they did not want to rub them the wrong way?

Mebuntu

Comhra wrote: »

The gentleman deserves a mention for best 1st world problem aired on Da Liveline in recent times.

I don't think you can dismiss the complaint that easily.

When you go onboard any aircraft at the very least you expect it to be clean and have every right to complain if the condition is as was described and the more so where the airline involved is "Ireland's only 4-Star airline".

Gatling

We flew to Prague last April with aer Lingus from Dublin and the plane was filthy half eaten lunches and empty bottles on seats ,it's like they don't give two fecks anymore it's akin to traveling on Dublin bus

Comhrá

Mebuntu wrote: »

I don't think you can dismiss the complaint that easily.

When you go onboard any aircraft at the very least you expect it to be clean and have every right to complain if the condition is as was described and the more so where the airline involved is "Ireland's only 4-Star airline".

I agree it's not good enough, especially for the "4-star airline" concerned and I think a written complaint to the company would have been appropriate but ringing Joe and going on the national airwaves was, I thought, a bit of an over-reaction. He came across as a bit of a moaner, I thought.

kevinandrew

It's pretty poor, personally I've never experienced anything but a spotless cabin and I fly regularly enough but it's obviously an issue. I know it was a decision based on faster turn arounds and has yielded good results in that respect but it doesn't look good and isn't how a "4-Star Airline" should present itself. 

It wouldn't be so bad if people weren't such animals! Passengers seem to treat aircraft cabins terribly and have zero respect for the environment they're travelling in, some of the mess left behind is disgusting to be honest. Aer Lingus will need to find a balance between cleaning and on time performance, the shouldn't be mutually exclusive.

fullstop

Have noticed this more and more with EI lately. Most times I get on a plane now there’s rubbish either in the seat pocket or just thrown on the ground that hasn’t been cleaned up.

Tenger

I was told that the recently resigned COO was the instigator of the no cleaning on turnarounds process. The theory was that it improved punctuality and that was more important to the customer than clean cabins

Noxegon

Tenger wrote: »

I was told that the recently resigned COO was the instigator of the no cleaning on turnarounds process. The theory was that it improved punctuality and that was more important to the customer than clean cabins

My last few EI flights have all been >30 mins late.

elperello

If you board a dirty aircraft the blame is on the airline.
No use their saying previous passengers caused the mess.
You paid for a clean seat and that's what you should get.

kona

People are ****in animals. Ye pay to sit on a airplane. Throw yer **** in the bin when the crew go through the cabin.

0lddog

In view of
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/manners-maketh-japan-frank-mcnally-on-the-unparalleled-politeness-of-tokyo-1.4036660
I'm wondering if internal flights in Japan ever need a cabin clean :P

kevinandrew

Noxegon wrote: »

Tenger wrote: »

I was told that the recently resigned COO was the instigator of the no cleaning on turnarounds process. The theory was that it improved punctuality and that was more important to the customer than clean cabins

My last few EI flights have all been >30 mins late.

In fairness it did yield very positive results during its first summer of operation, it was part of a wider programme aimed at improving on time performance. The airline got tough with outstation handling agents, axed cleaning etc. and it resulted in Aer Lingus placing top for punctuality at Dublin Airport every month of 2016 and comfortably beating the "on time airline" Ryanair.  

The strong performances continued into 2017 but have slipped in the past year or two, congestion at Dublin being a big problem.

zilog_jones

...Whereas in the Japanese capital, where 10 million commuters use the Metro daily, nothing notable happens for years on end...

LOL, I guess they haven't been there very long! Because trains being delayed due to "personal injury" (which can mean suicide) are a daily occurrence in Tokyo...

smurfjed

The whole ranking concept for airlines is BS, the airlines pick the staff, the service and the ground staff to support this concept. If you dont participate, you get fe..ckeed

tototoe

kevinandrew wrote: »

In fairness it did yield very positive results during its first summer of operation, it was part of a wider programme aimed at improving on time performance. The airline got tough with outstation handling agents, axed cleaning etc. and it resulted in Aer Lingus placing top for punctuality at Dublin Airport every month of 2016 and comfortably beating the "on time airline" Ryanair.  

The strong performances continued into 2017 but have slipped in the past year or two, congestion at Dublin being a big problem.

We'll get you there on time, but ignore the mess? We can't do both like.. :-)

spurious

kona wrote:

People are ****in animals. Ye pay to sit on a airplane. Throw yer **** in the bin when the crew go through the cabin.

This. Sick to death of people not taking responsibility for their own filth.
Parenting again.

Nicetrustedcup

I think it's shocking leaving rubbish on your seat on a plane.

The cabin crew go's around at lest 2 times during the flight with a plastic bag to pick up your rubbish so there is no reason to live rubbish around.

However fly Ryanair only time you get a clean plane is the 2st flight in the morning ha.

eusap

i often take the last flight back from Brussels and by that time the AL plane looks like it hosted a 3 year olds birthday party. Filthy Carpet, mashed crips, rubbish in seats, crumbs all over the place etc.... It is the new normal for AL

Locker10a

eusap wrote: »

i often take the last flight back from Brussels and by that time the AL plane looks like it hosted a 3 year olds birthday party. Filthy Carpet, mashed crips, rubbish in seats, crumbs all over the place etc.... It is the new normal for AL

It’s not good enough and they need to compromise somewhere, either every second flight or select proper cleaning for “select routes” that are more notorious than others for messy pax

Stovepipe

For info, EI's aircraft get a deep clean inside and out about every six to eight weeks; that's carpet changes, every seat cushion taken up and the seat structures deep cleaned and quite a few seat covers and cushions replaced and the interior, including all overhead bins and toilets sanitised to professional standards. If you saw the sheer volume of discarded wrappers, dropped food etc that is removed from under the cushions and under the seat base, you'd never fly again. When you think that an average day's work for an airliner means that four or five hundred people pass through that aircraft and leave their waste behind, it's a lot of graft for the cleaners and if the punters want a 25-minute turnaround, then you will get a barely cleaned aircraft, so if someone tips their sticky drink on the floor or soils a seat or leaves a toilet looking like an away day in Calcutta, it adds to the workload and the pax have to be kept waiting while the damage is cleaned up. passengers seem to think that behaviour that they wouldnt dare do at home or in a restaurant is acceptable in an aircraft, such as breaking seat pockets, writing graffitti on window blinds, messing up the toilets, casually dropping all kinds of food and liquids on the floor and mashing it in with their shoes yet expecting the interior to be as clean as a surgery inside a 25 minute turnaround. Not going to happen unless people change their behaviour.

orionm_73

I wonder how the cloth seats on the A321LR will fare on short haul sectors.

Stovepipe

They won't last. Expect a change to leather. It survives much longer, is easier to clean, except for chewing gum of all things. When I become dictator for life, I'll ban chewing gum on aircraft on pain of instant death.

faceman

kona wrote: »

People are ****in animals. Ye pay to sit on a airplane. Throw yer **** in the bin when the crew go through the cabin.

I was on a flight recently with a well known Irish airline. Cabin crew came through the aisle with the bin and I went to put a magazine in to it. She told me I couldn’t put rubbish in the bin that hasn’t been purchased on the plane. I laughed and she caved and let me bin it.

kona

faceman wrote: »

I was on a flight recently with a well known Irish airline. Cabin crew came through the aisle with the bin and I went to put a magazine in to it. She told me I couldn’t put rubbish in the bin that hasn’t been purchased on the plane. I laughed and she caved and let me bin it.

Was she joking? Because that makes no sense on her part.

Locker10a

faceman wrote: »

I was on a flight recently with a well known Irish airline. Cabin crew came through the aisle with the bin and I went to put a magazine in to it. She told me I couldn’t put rubbish in the bin that hasn’t been purchased on the plane. I laughed and she caved and let me bin it.

I think that was probably an attempt at humour

Locker10a

orionm_73 wrote: »

I wonder how the cloth seats on the A321LR will fare on short haul sectors.

Same way the a330 fabric seats do on short haul sectors

Conservative

kona wrote: »

People are ****in animals. Ye pay to sit on a airplane. Throw yer **** in the bin when the crew go through the cabin.

This. Part of our business involves servicing machinery from home offices. It's large expensive equipment so not the kind of thing your average Joe has sitting at home. Some of the dirt and filth we find attached to items handed over to us beggars belief. How somebody wouldn't be embarrassed to hand it over I'll never know.

A decent percentage of people live in pigsty's and must be oblivious to it. They treat other people's property in a similar manner.

Nijmegen

The airline industry is fascinating as an opportunity to study anthropology. Yeah the airline needs to clean the aircraft but different cultures definitely have different approaches and sadly you can say from flying out of Dublin we don’t have anything near a Japanese “clean the stadium after the match” type of mentality as punters.

That being said, I’ve heard the stories of ME3 crews on certain types of legs into Asia and it’d make you never want to fly again.

Stovepipe

Once seen, the sight of a toilet where a citizen of not-Europe, who may be unfamiliar with Western toilets, has done a "dirty protest", is not forgotten. Friends, who had to strip out and deep-clean an aircraft that was handed back after a Summer in ME service, before they could even begin to carry out the C-Check, said that it was deeply corroded below the cabin, along it's full length, from human pee and essentially was only fit for scrap. To save face, the aircraft was rebuilt from the belly up to the windows.

Doop

Stovepipe wrote: »

.... and if the punters want a 25-minute turnaround, then you will get a barely cleaned aircraft, so if someone tips their sticky drink on the floor or soils a seat or leaves a toilet looking like an away day ..

To be fair as a punter I dont care about turn around times...they are not my concern they are the airlines. I only ask for a clean seat and my flight to hopefully leave on time. I will dispose of my rubbish and not leave the place in a mess but I dont expect to have to get onto a plane and start cleaning up myself before I can sit down!

Jack1985

Doop wrote: »

To be fair as a punter I dont care about turn around times...they are not my concern they are the airlines. I only ask for a clean seat and my flight to hopefully leave on time. I will dispose of my rubbish and not leave the place in a mess but I dont expect to have to get onto a plane and start cleaning up myself before I can sit down!

Yes but you the punter expect as certain fare and to be able to offer that fare the airlines need to be competitive which usually means an airframe (short-haul at least) needs to be operating at a minimum 6 sectors per day.

Crew go through the cabin multiple times but yet people fail to hand over rubbish. Landing transatlantics in our case (or long-haul in general) are the epitome of it.

Stovepipe

A good cleaning crew will clean a transatlantic A330 from "explosion in a haribo factory" to spotless in two hours. That's about 16 people working hard, to remove the impact of nearly 300 pax. When it gets to the far side, the same task will be repeated, as if it had been never done before. So, if a 330 does a typical JFK-DUB-AGP (malaga)-DUB-JFK in 24 hours, that's four total clean outs for the best part of a thousand people. Sometimes, that turnaround is done in 90 minutes or the flight is delayed because the clean-up is extra difficult. The ordinary punter doesnt grasp how much effort goes on behind the scenes, to remove their rubbish and make the aircraft fit for service inside 2 hours, not to mind maintenance and servicing tasks that are carried out. We often have to fix multiple cabin snags because the travelling public wear out the seats and other fittings and have been known to vandalise them out of boredom or just mindlessness. A320 arm rests are a particular favourite with the wreckers! So, airline punter, please tidy up your waste as you go, please do not break the seats / overhead bins / seat pockets / toilets, if at all possible and then ring up Liveline to gripe about it.

gman2k

kona wrote:

People are ****in animals. Ye pay to sit on a airplane. Throw yer **** in the bin when the crew go through the cabin.

And an unclean aircraft will only encourage even more dirty behaviour from passengers

PhilOssophy

Terrible isn't it, you'd think that somebody would clean up after the elite in our society as they jet around Europe, woe betide somebody might have to clean up after themselves.......

Stovepipe

Nothing to do with elitism; just ordinary poeple who simply think it's okay to drop food or fluids, bottles, cans, packaging and so on, precisely because airlines have cleaners. Like I said before, they wouldnt dare do it at home or in a restaurant but think doing so in an aircraft is acceptable.

faceman

kona wrote: »

Was she joking? Because that makes no sense on her part.

Definitely wasn’t joking

Jack1985

Jack1985 wrote: »

Yes but you the punter expect as certain fare and to be able to offer that fare the airlines need to be competitive which usually means an airframe (short-haul at least) needs to be operating at a minimum 6 sectors per day.

Crew go through the cabin multiple times but yet people fail to hand over rubbish. Landing transatlantics in our case (or long-haul in general) are the epitome of it.

Expecting a last-minute p[ass through of the cabin once it has been emptied is not exactly Hyacinth Bucket behaviour. I've been on planes where there were still empty crisp packets on the seats. Whatever about people not handing stuff over, and ignoring spills and stains for a second, the crew should do a walk through of the 15 or so rows that they're responsible for and grab any items that are just lying there. That's a minimum standard to be expected anywhere.

Jack1985

Deleted User wrote: »

Expecting a last-minute p[ass through of the cabin once it has been emptied is not exactly Hyacinth Bucket behaviour. I've been on planes where there were still empty crisp packets on the seats. Whatever about people not handing stuff over, and ignoring spills and stains for a second, the crew should do a walk through of the 15 or so rows that they're responsible for and grab any items that are just lying there. That's a minimum standard to be expected anywhere.

EI cabin crew are not required to clean on the ground and do not. That's not going to change. EI decided a few years ago to stop cleaning at outstations and perform quick walkthroughs by its cleaners in DUB on most short-haul aircraft, that's their decision and thus by feeding back to them is the only way that will change.

People leaving items are responsible for it, I'm beyond listening to the likes of ''grab any items'' if the general public are that inept of being able to dispose their own rubbish to crew during rubbish collections they can sit in it frankly.

That's the issue, though. I, as a paying customer, do not want to sit in someone else's filth. It has nothing to do with me. Lumping all passengers into the one category and saying "passengers made it, so passengers can sit in it" is farcical.

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and the table was full of cutlery and dirty dishes and being expected to stack it and dispose of it yourself because management were of the opinion of "you made, you clean it".

PhilOssophy

Would people be shocked if they got on a bus and saw this?

I would if I was asked to pay €250 for a ticket and expected to sit in the seat for 3hrs

Jack1985

Deleted User wrote: »

That's the issue, though. I, as a paying customer, do not want to sit in someone else's filth. It has nothing to do with me. Lumping all passengers into the one category and saying "passengers made it, so passengers can sit in it" is farcical.

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and the table was full of cutlery and dirty dishes and being expected to stack it and dispose of it yourself because management were of the opinion of "you made, you clean it".

I'm not disagreeing with you, the issue here is the members of the travelling public who think it's acceptable in the first instance to discard of waste on to the floor, in seat pockets etc on aircraft and believe they have the divine right for someone to clean up after them.

If I take a bus and bring a sandwich etc on with me it leaves with me, if there's someone who passes through on a bus with a bin and asks for waste I will hand it over. Not just throw it flippantly on to the floor.

PhilOssophy

Deleted User wrote: »

I would if I was asked to pay €250 for a ticket and expected to sit in the seat for 3hrs

Does the €250 mean somebody should clean up after people?
Imagine the outrage if Ryanair added a "cleaning up after scummy people" charge.

Jack1985

Jack1985 wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with you, the issue here is the members of the travelling public who think it's acceptable in the first instance to discard of waste on to the floor, in seat pockets etc on aircraft and believe they have the divine right for someone to clean up after them.

Yes, they shouldn't do that. But people are scumbags and plenty of people do wreck the place and leave crap everywhere. Expecting the next paying customer to clean up after them instead of putting measures in place to mitigate against the issue is a one way ticket to going out of business.

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Does the €250 mean somebody should clean up after people?

Frankly, yes, but to put it another way........paying €250 means that I shouldn't have to clean up before I sit down.

Dante7

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Does the €250 mean somebody should clean up after people?
Imagine the outrage if Ryanair added a "cleaning up after scummy people" charge.

Ryanair do add a "cleaning up after scummy people charge". It is factored into the airfare and is used to pay the staff who clean the aircraft.

PhilOssophy

Does €250 mean you don't have to clean up after yourself? What is the threshold above which you don't have to clean up?
Look at the cinema the next time you leave and tell me cost matters 1 bit, the problem is the attitude of people. "Somebody else will clean up after me".

Jack1985

Deleted User wrote: »

Expecting the next paying customer to clean up after them instead of putting measures in place to mitigate against the issue is a one way ticket to going out of business.

Unfortunately though that synopsis doesn't hold up, because its been the norm at EI since 2015 and financial results have gone in one direction.

elperello

Some posters seem to be advocating a kind of Clean Seat Lottery where the lucky passengers get to sit in a clean seat if the person before them was responsible and tidy.

The lottery losers get to sit in a dirty seat.