A passenger onboard a recent flight made an odd decision that left travellers feeling queasy. One fellow flier snapped a photo of the moment when the man appears to have turned the aircraft into his own launderette. The photograph received a wave of responses, with passengers dubbing the decision “nasty” and “disgusting“. However, others have praised his ingenuity as “multi-tasking”.
The photograph, which was uploaded to the Instagram account @PassengerShaming, currently has 5,105 ‘likes’ and 106 comments.
The image appears to show a man sitting in an economy window seat.
He is leaning forward slightly to look out of the window adjacent to the seat in front of him, as the view from his window his blocked by something rather unexpected.
Tucked up under the blind of his own window is a pair of socks, apparently using the sun shining in to dry them.
Users in the comments section have claimed he was doing his laundry onboard, and that the window served as a handy spot to air out his socks.
The image has received an outpouring of opinions, with one viewer even saying the image left them feeling physically sick.
They wrote: “That made my gorge rise. People usually rest their heads there. Ack.”
Others echoed the sentiment, saying: “I can just imagine the stinky cheese smell from the wet disgusting socks.
Another comment reads: ”This is just too nasty. I lift those shades many times with my son while flying… next time I will remember the feet juice.”
While many commenters said that the socks were part of the mans inflight laundry routine, another posed a more vile situation: “They probably just walked into the lavatory in their socks… It’s just a little urine.. nothing the sun can’t take care of.”
Amidst all of the repulsed viewers, there was one who got a laugh of out it.
They wrote: “I thought those were feet of someone hanging on to the side of the plane #flyingeconomy.”
Overall, hygiene was definitely the biggest cause for concern amongst travellers.
“Now I’m going to be one of those people that wipes down the whole seat area,” said one Instagram user.
Onboard cleanliness has been a hot topic recently, following a ranking of the world’s cleanest airlines.
The research took onboard cabin factors including “cleanliness and presentation of seat areas, tables, carpets, cabin panels and washrooms all contribute towards the final results.”
Skytrax’s World’s Best Airline Cabin Cleanliness 2019 voted Taiwanese airline EVA Air as the cleanest airline, followed by Japan Airlines.
Worryingly, no British airlines ranked in the top 20 at all.
European airlines popular with Britons did feature in the list for 2019, though.
Swiss International Air Lines came in seventh place and was awarded Best Airline Cabin Cleanliness in Europe 2019.
German carrier Lufthansa came in 10th place, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in 15th and Finnish airline Finnair in 20th.
