Frequent flyers aren’t the only ones who’ve had it with crappy airport facilities.
An aviation whistleblower has flagged the revolting conditions at American Airlines’ crew lounges at airports, citing broken furniture, decrepit lavatories and even bed bugs. The watchdog, who goes by @JonNYC, aired these crewmember grievances in a series of viral X posts.
These employee quarters generally entail quiet areas outfitted with reclining chairs so flight attendants and pilots can grab some rest between sky shifts, One Mile At A Time reported.
However, many of the AA crewmember refuges have fallen into disrepair, per the watchdog, referencing an unnamed crewmember who called the state of the AA lounges at Dallas Fort Worth Airport (DFW) “deplorable.”
“Bed bugs found in the C7 room reclining chairs,” @JonNYC exclaimed. “The bedbug was crawling on a crewmember, thank goodness he saw it!! Tell a friend to tell a friend.”
Included was a photo of said pest crawling on the wood floor along with pics of the chairs with the seat cushion covers completely worn away.
The X user wrote that they found the conditions particularly deplorable as “pilots use these rooms too.”
Not to mention that “the bathrooms are often out of service and [crewmembers] need to use terminal bathrooms,” said the whistleblower while quoting a complaint from another anonymous AA crewmember. Photos showed crumbling and brown ceiling tiles, rusty sinks and messes like a lavatory you’d see in a zombie movie.
Also featured in the digital hall of shame was LAX terminal 5, per @JonNYC, who shared pics of the broken and crooked recliners in the airport’s AA luxe lounge.
“There is another chair in that room, not in the picture, that won’t stay upright,” they rued. “It needs to be propped up against the wall.”
Unfortunately, other airline lounges don’t seem to have these issues. The watchdog included a quote from an unnamed AA crewmember, who said that the Delta and United Airlines crewrooms “are like havens meanwhile we’re in absolute dog s–t rooms with mold & asbestos.”
Air experts were appalled by the so-called state of the AA rest spaces.
“While I wouldn’t expect airline employee crew rooms to be like Four Seasons properties, or something, I think you’d expect them to be a bit nicer than what’s being reported above,” wrote Ben Shlapping of One Mile At A Time. “American’s crew rooms throughout the system are reportedly in horrendous condition, and are basically falling apart.”
He found the bed bug infestation particularly problematic as it “poses a major health and safety concern for flight attendants, especially as they board flights headed to points across the globe.”
This past winter, passengers on multiple Turkish Airlines flights reported bedbugs crawling on the seats and falling from the cabin – but the airline brushed off the alleged pestilence.
Meanwhile, A View From The Wing’s Gary Leff attributed the shambolic conditions to the stingy attitude of American Airlines’ CEO Robert Isom, who infamously told employees during a meeting after his 2022 promotion that “we can’t spend a dollar more than we need to.”
“That was certainly consistent with the mindset of the airline already, which probably explains how things got here,” said Leff. Although he noted that an American Airlines spokesperson told him that the photos didn’t represent the conditions of the lounges, which they claimed had since been “refreshed.”
“According to a spokesperson for American, they are taking immediate steps to review and correct the conditions, and there are renovation plans underway already for several of these spaces,” he said.
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