The swine flu prompted Southwest Airlines to do major spring cleaning.

The discount carrier, which has offered free pillows and blankets to its passengers, threw away every shred of linen on its 539 jets on April 29.

"We recently removed blankets and pillows from the aircraft in the last month or so, when the concerns about the swine flu came up," said Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz at the airline’s Dallas headquarters. "We took them out thinking we would replace them."

Board a Southwest flight anytime soon, and you will see that the thinking changed.

[...]

He said Southwest plans to keep blankets and pillows out of its cabins for the rest of this year but hasn’t made a decision whether to provide them after that, or whether to charge passengers for them. [...]