Unsanitary at any Altitude - How Clean is the Aircraft?

There was a moment when it hit me hard about the cleanliness of aircraft.  Three smartly dressed airline employees boarded my flight, chatting amiably with the working crew.  They stored their gear neatly and professionally before taking up a three-seat row.  Then, before pushback, each of them in unison pulled out sanitizing cloths, pulled down each tray table and began to work it over, back and front. 

Record flight delays and crowded airplanes are causing more commercial aircraft to remain in circulation beyond their scheduled cleaning (here for consideration is the site of a commercial aircraft servicing company).  Stories like overflowing toilets leaking down aircraft aisles don't help matters (this reportedly happened in June on an Amsterdam-to-Newark Continental Airlines flight - there was some press that the passengers might group together and bring a lawsuit while Continental says it gave the 168 passengers flight vouchers and that one of the passengers caused the problem by trying to flush a latex glove).  Southwest, JetBlue and American Airways say that each plane in the fleet gets a thorough, industrial cleaning once a month.  Continental says every plane gets an overnight cleaning including replacement of soiled pillows and blankets, vacuuming of the cabin floor and total lavatory treatment.  This is comforting, but rushing for turn-around between flights it is fair to expect that planes get a pretty cursory cleaning.  According to American, for instance, limited ground time prevents the wipe down of all tray tables.  Only those trays with noticeable issues get treatment, thus, I suspect the three employees on my flight know that if they want a clean tray table for their flight they had better expect to clean it themselves.

A long, unairconditioned wait for takeoff often underlines a sense of comfort and hygiene.  The aircraft can usually use the auxiliary power unit to run the air conditioning (using the aircraft engines for airconditioning is expensive overkill that can cause a plane to burn enough fuel to have to pull out of the departure sequence for a re-fill).  Sometimes the auxiliary power unit can fail, and many report that in any event the air conditioning doesn't function as well on the ground as in the air.  The same is true for lavatories that use a pump for the flushing function on the ground, but generally enjoy the benefit of a pressurized cabin to turbo charge a flush when the plane is in flight (here is the Howstuffworks page on the topic). Having passengers lower window shades on bright, sunny days can help ease the cabin temperature before takeoff.  Then there are carriers like Cathay Pacific that runs its air conditioners an hour or even two before planes board.