Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Attendant Current
Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Illness / Injury; Ground Event / Encounter Person / Animal / Bird
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy
We have documented the many failures as well as the numerous illnesses and health exposures of our crew members to airline management and we have still have yet to see any tangible improvements to the airline or its procedures pertaining to health; safety; sanitation; proper trash removal or meeting guidelines for blood borne pathogen or following the new OSHA and CDC guidelines for EBOLA.This week a potentially contagious and severely ill passenger boarded. His origination and heritage showed travel and birth from [Country X] and [Country Y] Africa. His list of family and friends where he shows prior travel history and contact with are all from [Country X] and [Country Y]. (Fail 1) The passenger was boarded without screening even though there were numerous passenger witnesses that stated the man was observed violently regurgitating; sweating and appearing disoriented and stumbling around the gate area prior to boarding as well as while in the boarding line.(Fail 2)  Passenger in question walked to the back galley where he already had a trash bag in his possession and asked a Flight Attendant for a 2nd one. He was violently regurgitating a milky white substance into the bag. His eyes were glazed; he was stumbling; not very ambulatory; appeared to be clammy; sweating and had fever. He felt that he might be contagious so he requested a row away from other passengers. He then was made to go back to his seat for weight and balance. I immediately called the Lead Flight Attendant (FA) and advised the Captain that this passenger should never have been boarded and a Complaint Resolution Official (CRO) needed to come out right away to evaluate for removal. (Fail 3)  The CRO came out and seemed completely untrained and uninformed in the screening questions or procedures for handling a potential EBOLA exposure passenger. I brought him to the back galley and advised him of the main questions to ask. Yet; later after inquiring none of the crucial screening questions were ever asked. Our airline never obtain country of designation; citizenship; passport information or his current travel history for the past 90 days to the [country X] or other affected EBOLA African regions. I then researched the passenger and found the information myself that he was from this region as is all of his family and acquaintances and his place of birth is [country Y] Africa. The passenger was then sent to a local hospital. I contacted the hospital and no info could be given due to HIPPA laws. However; we did find out the passenger was not simply released. There was enough of a concern to require him to be admitted and was undergoing testing. Nobody from upper airline management made any contact with our crew whatsoever after this exposure. (Fail 4) No arrangements or follow up was made at all. It was just basically ignored. The only movement came from my part where I activated our union president who then activated the corporate office and notified the Director of Safety and Director of Inflight. Even though; neither of these individuals contacted any of our crew to ensure our safety was cared for during or after this incident. During the flight I met with the Captain and advised the importance of having the plane scheduled for disinfection of the 12 seats where the infected ill passenger had dribbled his biohazard bodily fluids on the aircraft before leaving. (Fail 5) He said that he would just advise the company and leave it up to them as to what to do but did not want to take decisive action. Only after meeting with him and explaining the exposure risk and demanding that those seats at least needed to be sked for spraying with the disinfectant cleanser. Only then after much pressure from myself was he willing to act to do the minimum. Upon landing after word got back to Corporate that the passenger in question was admitted for further testing. The company only then decided to pull the plane from service for full biohazard deep disinfectionat the hangar. (Fail 6) This was later dropped to just a basic cleaning at the gate with jet bridge attached. These are just more ongoing examples of where Health; Safety and Sanitation is constantly ignored at this airline. The ball is continually dropped; procedures are continually not followed; untrained outsourced dangerous staff are continually put into place to protect our health and safety which are not competent in these duties. Follow up procedures are not being done and corners are continually being cut just to get planes out and keep the planes up in the air. All health; safety and sanitation is continually disregarded and much desperately changes are never made. Even after extensive documentation has been sent to our airline for several years now.Please advise the status of what your agency plans are for our airline if any and what can be done to ensure our health; safety and sanitation in the future for our crew members onboard these aircraft. Proper training is need for new outsourced staff to meet training guidelines; screening and handling for potentially infected EBOLA passengers to meet CDC and OSHA guidelines.Airline needs to do better secure passenger tracking and information gathering for these type of individuals. The airline had virtually no information on this passenger. The info obtained was only found by my own personal research. The company was completely uninformed of this crucial information.The Director of Health and Safety and OSHA Compliance Rep need to design and implement a much needed plan to revise our entire; health;  safety; sanitation; trash removal and infected passenger handling and training guidelines for this airline. We have provided them both as well as other pertinent government agencies volumes of documentation on the areas of risk and short coming for some time now. Yet; nothing is ever changed and no policies are ever put into place to rectify these many ongoing unsafe and non compliant conditions at our airline.
The reporter confirmed that the CDC has been informed.
A Flight Attendant (FA) noticed an ill passenger during the boarding process. An investigation revealed that the passenger had recently travelled to Africa. The Passenger was observed to be sweating and vomiting. The FA notified the Lead FA and Captain of the situation. A Complaint Resolution Official (CRO) was called and the passenger was removed from the flight. The reporter was concerned that no precautions were taken for the crew and that the aircraft was not sufficiently cleaned and disinfected upon arrival at the destination.