review: TAP Air Portugal: grimy dirty business class seats

 TAP Air Portugal, the airline where a week at a desk battling their web site might get you a ticket, has filthy business class seats, and they argue against cleaning them.

This channel, under and to the left of the seat, had a lot of food inside:

The TAP Air Potugal employee said yes, they don't clean that part. He said there is no contact between me and the trough of old food, so don't worry about it. When I insisted, he scooped the old food out from the trough, onto the floor around my feet:

This stowage compartment just had a few crumbs, and they seemed to agree with cleaning it:

The arm had food spillage stains:

Wiping with a damp cloth would have cleaned that. Their re-clean failed to get the food stains on the arm, so i asked to borrow the cloth. It took minimal elbow grease to get it off.

There were crumbs and other particles on this upholstered element (I can't remember if it was a chair arm or something else):

Here's another persepective on spillage dirt on the arm, with a lot of other dirt and grime out of focus in a channel below. This channel is one of the elements they said they did not clean and would not clean.  Its state was consistent with what they said: it had clearly not been cleaned in a long time:

This rail, part of the area in front of the passenger's face, had splash stains, and a continuous line of accumulated grime on the upward-facing part.  To clean, get a cloth, some warm water, and a cleaning product, press in the cloth with a finger, and run it along.  It's not difficult, and gets you 90% of the way there.  It was clearly months since someone had cleaned it, even to that standard.  Again, the staff handling the matter told me that this element was not cleaned by them normally.  It's deliberately stained and grimy like that in front of your face, because it is not a part they clean.  In which case, no wonder it hasn't been done for many months.  Maybe it has never been done, or just gets done by the passenger themselves when it gets disgusting enough:

This one was the nicely-designed mini table above and to the side within the passenger's space.  It's two patches of clear residue, probably from a spillage.  Again, a wipe with a cloth would have fixed it.  These guys are not cleaning to the most basic level, at all.  On this one, the employee claimed not to be able to see it, and told his colleagues in Portuguese how this nuts English guy was making things up.  I tried to help him see it, but he couldn't, and I cleaned this one myself.  By itself it wouldn't be cause for complaint, but it's part of the whole space not having been cleaned to any basic level.  It took a wipe with a cloth:

I could have (and did) clean the whole pod better in a few minutes, given a damp cloth. The ticket price was 14230 BRL, or around 2200 EUR.