This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Disclosure, visit this page.

It's no secret that many airline passengers leave a mountain of trash in their seatback pockets and/or on the floor beneath them. On some airlines, flight attendants are responsible for picking up trash in between flights or at least for getting most of it before the cleaners come aboard and do a quick clean-up.

Trash on the ground can be a safety hazard, which is why you will see flight attendants go up and down the aisle usually after every meal and drink service and definitely before the plane lands with garbage bags.

One flight attendant got creative in tricking his passengers into picking up their trash and it was captured in a new viral video. I'm not sure of the airline but it looks like Spirit Airlines, which would be on brand.

The flight attendant can be heard over the public address system leading passengers in a stretching exercise. The video (embedded above) begins with all the passengers stretching their arms up and the flight attendant saying, "we're going to go to the left side, we're going to stretch that side out. Doesn't that feel amazing? Then you're going to stretch all the way up. Stretch all the way up. And now I want you to go all the way down and pick up all that trash that's on the floor. Just pick up all that trash as we will be coming through the cabin, anything you want to discard."

You can hear passengers chuckling as they realize they've just been suckered. It was a brilliant exercise (pun intended) and most of the comments are positive, including from one person (@minusgravity) who said, "Now every flight attendant is going to be trying to do this." They're probably right. Here are some other popular comments:

@brengagne: That's a cool flight attendant. I've been on a few flights like that where the flight attendants have some fun with the passengers. It makes the flight a lot more fun and memorable for everyone. 👍

@Novaplumber: What in the economy class is going on here

@Movingmaud: he's so real for this, cleaning up after yourself is such a basic thing idk why everyone doesn't do it

I've flown twice in the last two days and I was shocked at how many people were blowing their noses and either stuffing the dirty tissues in the seatback pockets or putting them on their tray table. Ugh. Even my eight-year-old son tried to put his tissue in the seatback pocket, but I caught him before he did it and told him to use the barf bag to put his trash in. He had no idea what a barf bag was (that's a good thing) and that people even use them. Unfortunately, in the last three weeks, I've seen two passengers on two different flights use them and the flight wasn't bumpy. Both were female so perhaps they were pregnant but either way, it's a good thing airlines provide them.

KEEP READING