Clean seats aboard BA assured only to VIP passengers
 

Just saw this article earlier, claiming that BA only cleans the seats that are reserved for Gold/Premier pax.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/clean-seat...engers-1674931

Not sure about this though. When flying CE as Gold I’m almost always in Row 1, and about half of the time the seat was not very clean or the middle seat table was sticky/had stains. However, cleaning the seat myself has become a routine for me and I don’t really think of it as an issue anymore.

Find this difficult to believe – the cleaning contractors (must be contracted out?) would need to be checking lists of seats or remember seats they had been told in advance. This seems impractical and like it would take longer than just wiping over all the seats, especially as there are multiple cleaners in the planes at once. I am sure a staffer can confirm though. I think the detritus found in seats is probably more likely a result of cleaners being insufficiently motivated towards quality (contractor not punished by BA for poor work or not paid enough), there being insufficient time to do a thorough job, the dark and shadowy conditions in the seat area, and the relative difficulty in accessing the crevices of the seat. These are not very nice jobs done by tired and low paid workers who clean tons of planes each day.

There has been reports from some of my colleagues that members of the concorde team have come on board before boarding with a pack of wet wipes and cleaned the seat of a Prem customer. You couldn't make it up!

Sounds like fake news to me

The author seems shocked that cabin crew come down the plane collecting rubbish as though that’s some new innovation!

My gilded arse gets to sit on the same pile of crap as do the arses of the obviously infrequent travellers around me.

Which, to give BA credit, has not been much crap lately. All the BA aircraft I've been on recently have actually been fairly clean, both involving LHR and LGW fleets. Crews have been quite pro-active about collecting rubbish, too.

There are some shocking examples posted on here but I have never really seen those myself – perhaps the occasional transparent cup wedged in a seat pocket or discarded blanket cellophane. When you think about what the WT cabin looks like after a 10-hour trip (or any cabin really), I am surprised the aircraft are as clean as they are. It amazes me how much mess people are able to make in such a small space, and on top of that their willingness to sit surrounded by such filth. I tend to have a pretty clean seat area throughout the flight, as I can’t stand being surrounded by crap!

Well I'm GGL (which is presumably what "Gold Guests" means in the linked article) and have had disgustingly dirty seats occasionally. Last time I flew on BA was LHR->ZRH (a couple of weeks ago) the "middle seat" in CE (i.e. a table) had clearly not been wiped since the last flight as evidenced by the large coffee-coloured ring on the table. After pointing this out the crew wiped this with the hot towel, so no great issue, but the suggestion clean seats are reserved for golds is not the case. Personally I think having your seat area cleaned should not be a GGL/Prem exclusive thing - I think it should happen for all pax.

Ah, IBT. They are largely a scrape operation, taking original content from other places and adding a bit of click-bait. See Wikipedia for more information on their track record in this area. The actual source is The Sun, here:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/1080...ing-seats-vip/

Where the story isn't quite as reported by IBT:

In other words, all seats are cleaned, there are random checks to see this has been done, but Prems and GGLs may get an extra check on top. Not that I've seen much evidence of this yet, but there again I also don't find BA's aircraft to be routinely in a bad way either, there was a definite improvement earlier in 2019 and that's been maintained with the new base airport deep clean process.

Top sleuthing

I still buzz round with the hot towel and spray and rub antibacterial gel wherever I can. No wonder the leather bits are worn!

And don't worry if you don't/won't read The Sun, it will be in the Daily Mail tomorrow ;)

I must admit I also use the hot towel.to give a quick once-over of my tray table and the table in the middle seat whenever I travel in CE once I've freshened myself up.

I'll say this as someone who has SOME knowledge being a ground handler, also formerly for an employer who handled BA.

There's no chance the groomers (cleaners) have a list of which seats to clean better than others. At outstations, they do the same cursory job on all the seats. They might treat J/F a bit better than Y/PY but that's kinda normal. But each individual seat? No way.

What I can't tell you, is if there is a BA staffer who checks on specific seats. Ex-Prince Harry flew in to YVR about a week ago and my guess is someone at LHR probably did do a little extra check on his (presumably) F seat. But ex-outstations, there's only so many people on staff and only so much they can do.

But doesn't that mean a transfer of bacteriae (and more) from your hands to both the tray table and the middle seat table? When the towel leaves your hands, it's surely not hot enough do disinfect those areas.