Why a blanket can stay aboard between flights
An airplane’s quick turnaround leaves little time to reset every item in the cabin. Blankets may be collected for laundering, but they are not necessarily treated as single-use items: depending on the airline’s procedures, a blanket might be folded and put back into service rather than washed after each passenger. A tidy fold tells you how it was prepared for the next flight, not whether it was laundered.
The difference is often in the handling
Some airlines provide blankets in sealed packaging, which signals that the item was prepared as clean inventory. An unwrapped blanket offers no such clue. Washing and replacement depend on the airline’s practices and on how blankets are handled between trips, so the cabin setting alone cannot tell a passenger when a particular one was last cleaned.
That makes the blanket a small but useful reminder about airline service: reusable does not mean freshly laundered for every flight. If that distinction matters to you, bring a light layer of your own or ask the crew whether the blankets are freshly supplied.
