Originally Posted by
clubord
I’ve flown dozens of charters at United and I think some impressions of how these are operated may be a bit skewed here.
The NFL teams are responsible for catering and they feed these athletes extremely well. No exaggeration, think the amount of food you individually would eat on a 2 hour flight..now triple that (per person.)
The biggest issue is the sheer volume of garbage that is collected from the outside catering. Sandwich wrappers, plastic/paper containers, food wrappers, etc. It’s significantly more than an average domestic flight.
This time of the year for start of training camp there is an exorbitant amount of players onboard. I know what the planes look like after a regular season game 50+ players, now that number is almost doubled, I’m sure the plane was pretty gross.
From a previous life the cleanliness of a charter plane was dependent on the type of sports the team play. Ice hockey teams for example, have really smelly kit bags in the hold, but the interior was quite clean as the players were exhausted and mainly slept. Baseball charters were the worst - sunflower seeds spat out, chew spit cups in seat backs are even worse tipped over on the carpet... just disgusting! All anecdotal, but we could accurately predict how the plane would look once we knew what sport the team played! (NBA charters sometimes had seats removed to give extra leg room - yes, really, on a charter by charter basis!). Personally, I'd be willing to bet the Japanese football (soccer) team leave their charter planes the cleanest...