Southwest Airlines considers cleaning only premium seats between flights

Cleaning may come at a cost for travelers who have recently traveled to the Southwest, and travelers are critical of the proposed policy.

According to reports, the Dallas-based airline is considering bringing in cabin cleaners between flights to clean only the premium seat areas of the aircraft that have extra legroom.

Bus cabins will reportedly not receive the same treatment.

“Southwest Airlines flight attendants are tidying each plane between flights today,” a Southwest spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Friday when asked about the reports.

“This will continue, and in addition, we are considering potentially bringing additional cleaners to certain airports as needed to supplement (not replace) our standard cleaning efforts.

“We will continue to ensure that our aircraft is ready for every customer, regardless of where the aircraft seats,” the spokesman added.

An airline flight attendants union board member posted a later-deleted video for crew members saying he was concerned about the experiment the airline was trying, where premium cabins would be cleaned between each flight but not the entire plane.

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The person claimed to have received a memo from Southwest on Tuesday about the new cleaning experiment.

He reportedly compared the proposed cleaning change to the upper class “smoking cigars and sipping brandy” on the Titanic, but passengers below were not having their seats cleaned.

A board member and head of safety for an airline flight attendants union (not pictured) posted a video in which he said he was concerned about the new policy. The video was later removed. (Scott Olson)

“So there are super clean planes in the front. There are reluctant, tidy planes in the back. Passengers will get on the plane. They will see this,” he said. “View from the Wing” blog.

“Passengers will be very upset when they see what happened.”

Southwest travelers used Facebook and X to voice their frustrations about the potential policy.

“I don’t trust anyone to clean my couch the way I want anyway.”

“Southwestern Airlines [is] One angry user X wrote: “I’ll only clean your couch if it smells like money.” “The rest of you villagers, you can sit in the germ-filled filth left behind by other poor people.”

“Southwest Airlines It turned into public transportation. Dirty and expensive,” another person criticizes the company.

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Facebook users felt differently.

“If you want a really clean seat, bring your own wipes,” one person said. “People need to stop making a mess for flight attendants to clean up.”

“People need to stop making a mess for flight attendants to clean up,” said one Facebook user (not pictured). (iStock)

Another Facebook user agreed, saying: “I don’t trust anyone to clean my seat the way I want anyway. I always carry wipes to wipe everything down when I sit down to keep germs away.”

Another Facebook user said: “They pick up the trash and put the seat belts on the seats. I’ve sat so many times with snack crumbs around my feet.”

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Jacqueline Whitmore, an etiquette expert from Florida, said every airline passenger should be courteous.

“Everyone has to do their own cleaning, regardless of whether the cleaning crew comes or not,” he told Fox News Digital. “As a traveler, you must clean up your manners and clean up your surroundings.”

Whitmore, who worked as a flight attendant for years, said that collecting garbage throughout the flight is usually the job of the flight attendants and not the responsibility of the cleaning crew.

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“I was seeing this all the time,” he said. “Passengers were changing their babies’ diapers on the seat. They could then leave the dirty diaper on the seat.”

After all, Southwest’s potential new cleaning policy could impact flight attendants more than passengers.

Southwest travelers took to social media to express their frustration with the reported new policy. (iStock)

“Once everyone gets off the plane, officers will scan the cabin one last time,” Whitmore said.

“Personally, I would have been more upset if I had been a flight attendant and not a passenger.”

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This was the second time in a week that Southwest received backlash from passengers.

The airline was criticized after making a major process change a month ago. The airline switched from an open seating policy on January 27, so passengers now must choose their seats or be assigned to specific locations.

Southwest passengers are complaining that they are having trouble reading their seat numbers because the airline has removed open seats. (iStock)

Passengers say they have difficulty reading their seat numbers, encounter problems with the boarding flow, and cannot disperse to the plane.

“We are always looking for ways to improve our customer experience to continue to deliver the seamless and reliable travel journey customers have come to expect from Southwest,” a company spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley J. DiMella contributed reporting.

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