These days, Omar Rodriguez, an 남자 밤 일자리 on-ramp and cockpit cleaner at New Yorks LaGuardia Airport, dreads cleaning airplanes — particularly toilets. Routine housekeeping duties are not the issue for Castillo and Pak, who are among cabin workers participating in todays walkout at New Yorks LaGuardia airport. Cabin cleaners are also charged with cleaning up the aircraft to look for things passengers have left, and they said they frequently found dirty diapers and half-eaten meals shoved in the seats pockets.
Travelers also leave precious items in haste to leave the plane, but that is no keeper of discovery for a cleaning crew. Airline passengers are often not aware of cleaning crews while they are hurrying from flight to flight.
In the airlines case, each plane is sanitized and cleaned after every flight, according to the airlines. If the aircraft has been sitting for more than eight hours–typically a long-haul jet–then the airline does deep cleaning, explained one member of Deltas operations team.
Another challenge in aircraft cleaning is the trend toward ever-faster turnaround times between flights, and the resulting strain on airline employees. When a fifth of flights are outside of the allowed schedule window, the employees are put under more pressure to operate under unsafe conditions. Some airlines increase profits by shortening turnaround times, even if the flight is inexcusably delayed.
Contrary to common perception, domestic routes do not require airlines to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled. Also, on flights using planes that have 30-to-60-passenger capacity, no compensation is required in the event of an upset caused by a safety-related limit in the aircrafts weight or balance.
Cabin crew are prohibited from helping passengers who are not able to attend to their physical needs during a flight, for example, using the bathroom, helping to feed themselves, or with mobility. Security restrictions on what kind of equipment and liquids may be brought onto an airplanes cabin may impact which medical equipment or medications you are allowed to carry on board to use during the flight. The quality of the air in an airplanes cabin is highly controlled, and studies show there is very little risk that any contagious diseases are transmitted aboard.
The CWA – The Cabin Crew Workers Association has received reports from our flight attendant members, pilots, and members of the traveling public regarding health problems that they attributed to breathing low-quality air in an airplanes cabin. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) continues our efforts to improve the air quality of airplane cabins, domestically and internationally, in order to protect both crew members and passengers. The scope of our report includes the cabins of major commercial aircraft (those carrying 30 or more passengers) operated by commercial airlines operating within the United States, and addresses safety and health issues of passengers and cabin attendants from time of airliner entry to disembarkation in either regular operational conditions or in an emergency.
To determine regulatory actions that the FAA has taken to address safety and health issues faced by passengers and flight attendants in large commercial airliner cabins, we interviewed and collected documents from officials at the Federal Aviation Administration about significant FAA-compliant safety and health efforts. To identify factors that slowed the rollout of airliner cabin occupant safety and health advances, we interviewed FAA, NTSB, and industry officials. The report does not include information about flight decks on major commercial airliners, nor about safety and health issues that impact flightdeck personnel (pilots and flight engineers), as they experience certain issues not experienced by cabin occupants.
Working conditions and health are significant issues within the airline industry, and those are elements that need to be addressed, along with the constraints of time and challenges. Working conditions, along with the challenges to the work-life balance and intensification of the job, has implications for flight crews health, and is an issue that the airline companies must address, too. Ramp and cargo workers at Swissport USA, the airlines contractor, allege that they are working when they are grossly understaffed, are not receiving adequate or promised pay for taking extra duties due to the low staffing levels, including overtime violations and paid sick days, and must operate broken or defective equipment.
William Alston, another Ramp and Cabin Cleaner at Swissport USA in LaGuardia, also alleges that William Alston has received a retaliatory suspension after protesting, and reiterates similar complaints of working conditions, broken equipment, shortstaffing, and poor pay. William Alston makes $18 per hour and claims that he has not received pay increases up to $21 per hour that he said was promised him and other workers because of an addition of the duties of cabin cleaners to their jobs handling aircraft cargo. When the spraying happens, Omar Rodriguez said, workers are expected to keep cleaning airplane cabins, with no provision made for the time or products needed for proper cleaning.
Over the last couple decades, plane cleaning jobs have been mostly outsourced to contractors and subcontractors that do not have any direct connection with the airlines they service. Most cleaning crews are provided the same benefits, safety practices, training methods, and equipment as other airline employees, such as cabin crews and baggage handlers.
The smallest amount of cabin crew jobs were typically done at one airline, and little comparative work has been done regarding hours worked at airlines. In that sense, the Air Transport industry and the Cabin Crew may represent the forerunners of the jobs of tomorrow, and also questions that are being asked by management. The need to expand the cleaning procedures aboard planes for larger numbers of flights in a way that does not drastically affect the program is another area where airlines are focused their search efforts.
With that information, FAA can then more effectively regulate safety, airplane and equipment designers can create safer planes, including cockpit environments, and more passengers can survive future accidents when equipment becomes safer.