Urrrgghhh.
The last time this occurred to me here was probably 20 years back.
We landed nicely ahead of sked time.
Door opens, pax all standing in aisles and then chaos reigns supreme as a small army of the non-UA ground staff stream on and everyone is made to sit down again.
Then these contract staffers announce that the cabin needs to be "sprayed".
About 5 minutes goes by as ground staff seem to have no idea what happens next - or by who.
Then they (ground staff) start spraying each loo, and crew bags, and all overheads. Which seems to take forever. Plane is packed nose to tail, in all classes.
Purser barks at FAs over PA to open all overheads to make process quicker.
Then we wait another 5 mins.
Then purser announces she is sorry, but after LAST spray was completed we need to stay seated
another 5 mins.
All very weird. No other explanation given to pax.
We were seated in C right near air-bridge door in #7 and saw and heard most of the exchanges. The FAs were totally taken by surprise and knew nothing of this it seemed to me until doors opened.
Curiously, we were on a
747 that day from IAD-SFO (#951) which was quite a surprise as it was supposed to be a 777. We got exit row #15 upstarts, and that was quite a bonus.
Whether that plane went on to SYD, as connex was only a little over 2 hours, I am not sure. Maybe it was not pest certified or whatever as usual aircraft are to here? They lost 2 of my bag pieces even with that long connex time.
Anyone else on this flight or knows what went on or why?