Massive Health Violations At Pittsburgh Airport

Airport dining has improved drastically through the years, with the expectation that all restaurants will be clean because of the federal regulations, but one airport seems to be behind the times. Throughout the past two years, Pittsburgh International Airport has accumulated more than 270 critical health violations in the airport's concourse restaurants, which include McDonald's, Charley's Steakery, and Nature's Kitchen.

Some violations of McDonald's, who tallied the most out of the airport's restaurants, include cross-contaminating raw meat with clean sterilized surfaces and undercooked meat in their Quarter Pounder and Angus burger menu items. Other dining hubs scoring equally as high in total in violations were Charley's Steakery with 31 violations, Nature's Kitchen having 25 critical health violations, and more familiar names like Subway ranking with 18 critical health violations.

The Allegheny County Health Department plans to implement a letter grading system for the airport on top of the online restaurant search that the county already provides to calm travelers' nerves. The interim health department director, Dr. Ronald Voorhees is quoted as saying "It sounds like more violations than we want to have... Certainly the hope is that it improves food safety throughout the country. That's the goal," to the Post-Gazette yesterday.