When you are next travelling through an airport take a few moments to look at how clean it is. Do you see litter on the floors, discarded food containers and cups, spilled drinks and food on the floors? No, its sparkling and clean.

Most busy international airports employ a legion of cleaners whose job it is to keep the airport terminals clean and free from detritus. They perform their work while surrounded by busy people headed off on business trips and harassed families going away for their annual vacations. The packaging from the airport fast food restaurants is enough to fill the airport bins several times over each and every day.

Marie is an airport cleaner at Glasgow’s busy international airport. She has previously gained experience at various other Scottish airports, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, but prefers Glasgow as it is much busier.

A typical day for Marie and those in her team will start at 4 a.m. when she starts the early morning shift, preparing the airport for that days influx of travellers. She told us that the biggest daily problem she must deal with is unattended luggage. ‘Even though people are aware of the threat of terrorism they still leave their bags and wander off to the loo. If I find a bag that is unattended I am required to report it to security straight away. Some people become quite upset when they find their hand luggage being treated like a suspect device.

Marie told us that she doesn’t really meet many rude or obnoxious passengers but it does happen occasionally. She said: ‘There was a young man at the airport last week who purposely dropped his milkshake on the floor that I had just polished and another who just threw his food packaging toward a bin without bother to make sure that it went inside’.

As well as the unattended bags that might be bombs and the occasional rude passenger Marie has to deal with all the odd things that people leave behind. She said: ‘By far the most common things I find these days are mobile phones, but laptops are also common. I’ve even found a wheel chair, a false leg and a bag containing an inflatable love doll.’

A key skill of anyone working as an airport cleaner is the ability to deal with people. ‘The ability to remain calm when someone is in a panic because they are late for their flight is definitely a bonus’ said Marie.

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