How often are airline blankets cleaned? Ex-flight attendant spills the beans

How often are airline blankets cleaned? Ex-flight attendant spills the beans

TORONTO — Raise your hand if you’re always cold on planes. If you’re like us and are always requesting an extra blanket onboard, you may want to read this before your next flight.

Reddit user mehow44, a former Southwest flight attendant, has confirmed on the popular social media site that some airlines don’t bother to clean or replace blankets between flights.

“Those blankets and pillows? Yeah, those just get refolded and stuffed back in the bins between flights. Only fresh ones I ever saw were on an originating first flight in the morning in a provisioning city,” the user wrote.

This claim was backed by Sara Keagle, an active flight attendant and HuffPost blogger. She told HuffPost that freshly washed blankets are only supplied to the first flights of the day. After that, blankets are simply refolded on all subsequent flights.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a new phenomenon. In 2008, The Wall Street Journal released a report that revealed that airline blankets were cleaned every five to 30 days.

If that weren’t enough to gross you out, mehow44 also dished out on another dirty little secret: “If you have ever spread your peanuts on your tray and eaten, or really just touched your tray at all, you have more than likely ingested baby poo. I saw more dirty diapers laid out on those trays than food. And those trays, yeah, never saw them cleaned or sanitized once.”

Ick!

So before you step foot on a plane again, don’t forget to pack an extra sweater and maybe a tablecloth too for good measure.

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