The debate over messes on planes — and who is responsible for cleaning them — blew up this weekend after Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass complained on Twitter that a United flight attendant made his pregnant wife pick up popcorn that their toddler dropped on the floor.
“The flight attendant @united just made my 22 week pregnant wife traveling with a 5 year old and 2 year old get on her hands and knees to pick up the popcorn mess by my youngest daughter,” Bass wrote in a Sunday tweet that included a photo of his kids in their airplane seats, popcorn scattered across the floor. “Are you kidding me?!?!”
The flight attendant @united just made my 22 week pregnant wife traveling with a 5 year old and 2 year old get on her hands and knees to pick up the popcorn mess by my youngest daughter. Are you kidding me?!?! pic.twitter.com/vLYyLyJC54
— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 16, 2023“Popcorngate” became the latest flash point for the flying public, which has also recently weighed in on the ethics of eating a full rack of ribs in the air, the odd birds who prefer middle seats and the practice of new parents handing out goodie bags in case their babies cry.
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The kerfuffle might have just been a passing annoyance for everyday travelers, but the family’s prominence in sports and entertainment amplified the discourse. Bass’s wife, Sydney Rae Bass, has 1 million Instagram followers; she previously appeared on the reality TV show of her sister, country music singer Jessie James Decker.
Both women posted about the incident on their Instagram Stories, according to news reports.
United had not replied to messages from The Washington Post by early Tuesday, but the airline’s Twitter account asked Bass for more details. “We certainly understand your concern and we’d like to look into this,” the tweet said.
The ratio on Bass’s tweet — more than 40,000 replies and roughly 11,000 likes — suggested that many respondents did not understand his concern.
“They’re flight attendants, bro, not your personal housekeepers,” one person replied.
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“Do you expect park janitors to clean up after your pet?” another said. “No; Your child, your responsibility.”
Model, cookbook author and prodigious Twitter user Chrissy Teigen watched the social media storm unfold. “Oh man this is exactly exactly the kind of tweet twitterers love,” she wrote. “God speed, friend.”
She added that comments were “unhinged from both sides. lots of passion being displayed. 10/10.”
Some who responded to Bass suggested that the 5-year-old could have handled the popcorn pickup, while many said the kids’ mom could have used the mess as a teaching opportunity. Another asked whom Bass expected to clean up the popcorn, which the baseball player said the airline provided.
“The cleaning crew they hire!” he replied.
The Post reported last year that many airlines had eased off on some of the deep-cleaning protocols they introduced in the early days of the pandemic. Staffing shortages have also left airplane cleaners — typically contractors — stretched thin.
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Others came to Bass’s defense, calling the family’s treatment “disgusting.”
“Are we supposed to carry hand held vacuums with us, too?!!” one person wrote in a comment on Sydney Rae Bass’s Instagram account. “Give mommas a break... especially ones traveling solo! Plane rides are hard enough with little ones.” The comment included a heart and popcorn emoji.
Jacqueline Whitmore, an etiquette expert and a former flight attendant, said the cleaning request doesn’t sound like something she would expect from cabin crew, who are “way too busy to worry about popcorn on the floor.” Their main jobs are to keep passengers safe, not wait on them, she said.
But, Whitmore said, messes typically come with the territory.
“People are going to leave behind trash and debris and peanuts, dirty baby diapers. I saw it all,” she said. “It’s not typical for a flight attendant to request that people clean up after themselves.”
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During the course of flights, the crew will go up and down the aisle to collect trash.
“But usually things that fall on the floor stay on the floor, because the cleanup crew is going to come at the end of the flight and take care of the plane,” said Whitmore, founder of the Protocol School of Palm Beach.
Still, she said, the right thing to do would have been to voluntarily pick up the popcorn.
“The proper etiquette is to clean up around your immediate surroundings,” she said. “And this might be a good lesson for children to teach them how to clean up around their immediate area as well.”
Roughly 12 hours after his original tweet, Bass wrote that United was “taking care of matters with the flight attendant internally” — which prompted a new round of criticism. Apparently unmoved, both Anthony and Sydney Rae Bass posted a photo of their smiling toddler Monday, embracing a family-size bag of popcorn.
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