Not sure I can agree, except if individual needs means flying LHR-CDG or ORD-LAS, then definately there is only one answer and it would be different.

If you look at any magazine survey - Conde Nast, Business Traveller - or any poll SkyTrax I believe - BA is pretty much consistently ranked in the Top 10 worldwide, whereas AA might make an appearance in the Top 10 Business Class between US and Europe, or some sub category.

I would also say that there are - and I have not tried to do a count - a lot more "bad service" and "problem" posts on the AA board than BA, and I may have seen one since I have been on here on the CX or SQ boards so yes there seem to be differences. Yes, I know AA has more daily flights so many more chances to screw up.

I know BA has its shortcomings too - like the transit bus between T4 and T1, or the CE seats (except bulkhead) for anything more than 1.5-2 hours.

It was interesting in this discussion about how dirty AA planes are there ended up being an IHT piece on how DL had cut back on the deep cleaning of its planes to save money, and has now gone back to a more regular rotation.

My experience was AA used to have extremely clean and well maintained interiors - could it be they cut back too?

Perhaps the FT board is on to something with this thread - despite the barbs and attempts at humor - that AA has in some way changed the rotation of deep cleaning or some other process that is resulting in more of us seeing dirty planes?

If so, maybe they will address it as they are with the enhancements to meal service and restoration of their employee recognition program.

Tom - thanks for pointing out the IHT piece - full below--

Pigsties in the sky get a cleaning
By Jeff Bailey The New York Times

Published: October 22, 2006
ATLANTA Seatback pockets hiding sticky surprises, carpets with patterns that can no longer conceal the curious stains, overripe lavatories and crevices oozing snack grit and plain old grime.

Increasingly, that describes the modern U.S. airliner, an untidy tube hurtling through the sky full of passengers who cannot wait to land and go wash their hands with disinfectant soap. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but in the airline industry it has taken a back seat to financial survival.

Airlines in the United States, which have been paring their fleets to cut costs, are flying their jets fuller than ever - and some of them are just a little too crowded not to be smelly. After dispensing with the expense of most meal service, airlines invited passengers to bring their own food aboard, and many planes now land littered with a smorgasbord of wrappers and leftovers.

Once on the ground, there are fewer employees to tidy up, thanks to widespread layoffs. And planes, which make money only when they fly, sit at the gate for shorter periods, often making cleanup a rush job.

"You put your hand in the seatback pocket and there's an open McDonald's ketchup container in there," said Joe Brancatelli, a frequent flier who runs an advice Web site for business travelers. Tidiness has declined in recent years, he said. "The problem is they've made so many cuts."

When cleaning is outsourced, "it's another part of the airline business that goes to the lowest bidder," he said.

And when outside food was invited aboard, routines for taking care of trash went awry. "A lot of inconvenient garbage," Brancatelli said. "The airlines can't control it. They can't plan for it."

Little wonder, then, that Delta Air Lines, regrouping in bankruptcy, noticed this year that it had let its 438 big jets become, in the words of Tim Canavan, director of operations, "dingy and dirty."

While the U.S. industry standard for deep-cleaning a jetliner - a process similar to having your car professionally detailed - is roughly every 30 days, Delta had let its schedule lapse to every 15 to 18 months. That is akin to cutting your daily shower back to once every couple of weeks. Just months after Delta began installing new interiors, including pricey leather seats, Canavan and his staff were surprised to find that some of the planes were already filthy. Thus began a humbling airlinewide effort to become neater.

Two cleaning contractors were fired for slipshod performance. Deep cleaning - an intense and precisely scripted process of brushing, scrubbing and vacuuming - now occurs at least every 30 days on Delta planes, bringing Delta up to par. A crew of auditors checks up on the cleaners.

"There's still a long ways they have to go," said Linda Hirneise, who heads the travel practice at J.D. Power & Associates, the market research firm. Her company surveys passengers about airline cleanliness, and this year the top-ranked carrier - JetBlue - received an 8.49 on a 10-point scale. But in Hirneise's opinion, "anything below a 9 is flunking."

Delta came in third in the J.D. Power survey this year, behind JetBlue and Southwest. At the bottom of the survey, which ranked only North American airlines, were Northwest and US Airways.

"All carriers have room for improvement," Hirneise said. "Sometimes you pull those trays down and you just want to walk off the plane."

The Federal Aviation Administration does not set cleanliness standards, so the issue is mainly one of public perception. Passengers have the occasional unclean encounter on an airplane, but hygiene shortcomings may be most apparent to airline workers.

One reason that JetBlue and Southwest, two low-cost carriers, won high marks is that their planes are newer. Also, though they tend to have fewer ground employees than airlines like United Airlines and American Airlines, they have company cultures that encourage flights attendants, gate agents and, at JetBlue, even pilots to tidy up.

Delta, with an aging fleet, says its own surveys show that passengers rate the food tastier, the seat roomier and the flight prompter when the plane's interior is new and clean.

"If the seat has crumbs in it, then you're probably not doing your engine maintenance - that's how people think," said James Whitehurst, chief operating officer at Delta. "People are disgusted by dirty airplanes."

In bankruptcy, Delta has been able to escape contracts it entered into with cleaning companies as well as demand price cuts, so that even the new cleaning regimen has not raised the overall cleaning bill. Flight attendants used to complain bitterly about the mess, said Dana Bartel, a manager and flight attendant. Now their remarks are quieter and more constructive, she said. But neither the process nor the airplanes are pristine, Bartel said, adding, "You get one result out of Atlanta, one out of New York."

In the face of all this, airlines maintain that they are trying to make a difference. Northwest said it deep-cleans narrow-body planes, like a DC-9, every 45 days, but wide-body planes, those seating more than six across, every 21 days. Longer flights are harder on interiors, Northwest said.

US Airways deep-cleans its planes every 60 days. "These were things that, unfortunately, went by the wayside while US Airways was trying to stay in business," a spokesman, Philip Gee, said. "We've spent a lot of money and time in the past year in cleaning up the cabins."

JetBlue uses only leather seats, which show rather than conceal moisture. In part, that decision stems from a flight that David Neeleman, chief executive of JetBlue, took before founding the carrier in 1999. Boarding, he sat in a cloth seat and immediately felt, well, a suspicious moisture. All the seats were full. So he grabbed a blanket as buffer and gingerly settled in for the flight. "A really bad experience," he said.


ATLANTA Seatback pockets hiding sticky surprises, carpets with patterns that can no longer conceal the curious stains, overripe lavatories and crevices oozing snack grit and plain old grime.

Increasingly, that describes the modern U.S. airliner, an untidy tube hurtling through the sky full of passengers who cannot wait to land and go wash their hands with disinfectant soap. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but in the airline industry it has taken a back seat to financial survival.

Airlines in the United States, which have been paring their fleets to cut costs, are flying their jets fuller than ever - and some of them are just a little too crowded not to be smelly. After dispensing with the expense of most meal service, airlines invited passengers to bring their own food aboard, and many planes now land littered with a smorgasbord of wrappers and leftovers.

Once on the ground, there are fewer employees to tidy up, thanks to widespread layoffs. And planes, which make money only when they fly, sit at the gate for shorter periods, often making cleanup a rush job.

"You put your hand in the seatback pocket and there's an open McDonald's ketchup container in there," said Joe Brancatelli, a frequent flier who runs an advice Web site for business travelers. Tidiness has declined in recent years, he said. "The problem is they've made so many cuts."

When cleaning is outsourced, "it's another part of the airline business that goes to the lowest bidder," he said.

And when outside food was invited aboard, routines for taking care of trash went awry. "A lot of inconvenient garbage," Brancatelli said. "The airlines can't control it. They can't plan for it."

Little wonder, then, that Delta Air Lines, regrouping in bankruptcy, noticed this year that it had let its 438 big jets become, in the words of Tim Canavan, director of operations, "dingy and dirty."

While the U.S. industry standard for deep-cleaning a jetliner - a process similar to having your car professionally detailed - is roughly every 30 days, Delta had let its schedule lapse to every 15 to 18 months. That is akin to cutting your daily shower back to once every couple of weeks. Just months after Delta began installing new interiors, including pricey leather seats, Canavan and his staff were surprised to find that some of the planes were already filthy. Thus began a humbling airlinewide effort to become neater.

Two cleaning contractors were fired for slipshod performance. Deep cleaning - an intense and precisely scripted process of brushing, scrubbing and vacuuming - now occurs at least every 30 days on Delta planes, bringing Delta up to par. A crew of auditors checks up on the cleaners.

"There's still a long ways they have to go," said Linda Hirneise, who heads the travel practice at J.D. Power & Associates, the market research firm. Her company surveys passengers about airline cleanliness, and this year the top-ranked carrier - JetBlue - received an 8.49 on a 10-point scale. But in Hirneise's opinion, "anything below a 9 is flunking."

Delta came in third in the J.D. Power survey this year, behind JetBlue and Southwest. At the bottom of the survey, which ranked only North American airlines, were Northwest and US Airways.

"All carriers have room for improvement," Hirneise said. "Sometimes you pull those trays down and you just want to walk off the plane."

The Federal Aviation Administration does not set cleanliness standards, so the issue is mainly one of public perception. Passengers have the occasional unclean encounter on an airplane, but hygiene shortcomings may be most apparent to airline workers.

One reason that JetBlue and Southwest, two low-cost carriers, won high marks is that their planes are newer. Also, though they tend to have fewer ground employees than airlines like United Airlines and American Airlines, they have company cultures that encourage flights attendants, gate agents and, at JetBlue, even pilots to tidy up.

Delta, with an aging fleet, says its own surveys show that passengers rate the food tastier, the seat roomier and the flight prompter when the plane's interior is new and clean.

"If the seat has crumbs in it, then you're probably not doing your engine maintenance - that's how people think," said James Whitehurst, chief operating officer at Delta. "People are disgusted by dirty airplanes."

In bankruptcy, Delta has been able to escape contracts it entered into with cleaning companies as well as demand price cuts, so that even the new cleaning regimen has not raised the overall cleaning bill. Flight attendants used to complain bitterly about the mess, said Dana Bartel, a manager and flight attendant. Now their remarks are quieter and more constructive, she said. But neither the process nor the airplanes are pristine, Bartel said, adding, "You get one result out of Atlanta, one out of New York."

In the face of all this, airlines maintain that they are trying to make a difference. Northwest said it deep-cleans narrow-body planes, like a DC-9, every 45 days, but wide-body planes, those seating more than six across, every 21 days. Longer flights are harder on interiors, Northwest said.

US Airways deep-cleans its planes every 60 days. "These were things that, unfortunately, went by the wayside while US Airways was trying to stay in business," a spokesman, Philip Gee, said. "We've spent a lot of money and time in the past year in cleaning up the cabins."

JetBlue uses only leather seats, which show rather than conceal moisture. In part, that decision stems from a flight that David Neeleman, chief executive of JetBlue, took before founding the carrier in 1999. Boarding, he sat in a cloth seat and immediately felt, well, a suspicious moisture. All the seats were full. So he grabbed a blanket as buffer and gingerly settled in for the flight. "A really bad experience," he said.