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Struggling low-cost carrier Riau Airlines has come up with a novel way to remind cabin crew that cleanliness is next to godliness — getting the company chairman and other senior executives to clean toilets aboard its planes once a week.

Chairman Teguh Triyanto said that as of this month, senior staff would be required to help keep the lavatories of the company’s aircraft spic and span every Friday.

“We are trying to demonstrate that in addition to safety, passenger comfort is our No. 1 priority,” Teguh said.

He added that he hoped the scheme would motivate the company’s rank-and-file to keep the aircraft clean and thereby keep passengers happy.

Teguh said the toilet was an integral part of the plane, but cabin crew often overlooked its cleanliness. On Friday, Teguh climbed into a Fokker-50 shortly after it landed in Pekanbaru from Tanjung Pinang and started cleaning the lavatory.

Along with 10 other directors and managers, Teguh, recently appointed the company’s chairman, cleaned the toilet as well as other areas on the plane.

Riau Airlines, based in Pekanbaru, serves routes in the western part of Indonesia using a fleet of five Fokker-50s and two British Aerospace 146s. It also offers smaller aircraft for charter.

Riau Airlines discontinued its flight linking Pekanbaru with Jakarta on Wednesday due to ongoing losses. Teguh was quoted by Antara as saying that once the airline had acquired a larger aircraft it would reopen the route. “For now, we are only focusing on short routes in Sumatra,” he said.

The route opened in December 2008 with two Avro RJ-100 aircraft with a capacity of 108 seats each. In the future, the airline would focus on commercial flights from Riau to Sumatra, he said. Riau Airlines also recently opened a new route to Jambi and plans a route to Palembang in the near future.

As air transportation has grown rapidly in the archipelago in the wake of the economic reforms since the late 1990s, carriers have been pressured to compete to get the most passengers by slashing fares. Travelers’ comfort and safety have been often overlooked as a result.

Eko Roesni, secretary general of People for Indonesia Air Transportation, said airline liberalization should have come with much tighter regulations.

“And the regulations must prioritize passengers because without them the industry would not be in business,” he said.