Yesterday eTN reported on American Airlines Crew telling a passenger to urinate in a bag on a flight from Phoenix to Kona last week. This happened after both toilets on this B757 aircraft became inoperational.
In response to this incident the airline issued the following PR statement: “At American, lavatories must be working properly prior to departure. If an American flight is in the air, and all lavatories become inoperative, the flight will divert to the nearest suitable airport in order for maintenance to rectify the situation. Due to the location of the aircraft, the flight continued to its intended destination.”
eTN Reader Michael Owen from Pennsylvania informed eTN after reading this article: On an American Eagle flight on August 27 from New York La Guardia (LGA) to Pitsburg, Pennsylvania (PIT) the single lavatory was out of order. The ground crew made an announcement on the ground instructing passengers to use the facilities before they boarded the plane. The flight was only 90-minutes in the air but the plane must have flown at least three trips without anything being done to fix the issue.
On August 21 United Airlines UA724 from Honolulu (HNL) – San Francisco(SFO) left Honolulu with one out of two toilets inoperational. The aircraft parked in Honolulu for several hours with the toilet locked, but no attempt was made to repair the issue prior to taking off on a 5-hour overwater journey to San Francisco.
Why even worry about having toilets on aircraft. In China, there seems to be a different approach. Parents of a young toddler allowed the child to defecate on the floor on a Shenzhen Airlines flight from Nanjing to Guangzhou. The mother of the child said the toilets were too small for her, the child and another relative to get inside,
Another child was allowed to defecate in his seat during a flight from Beijing to Detroit last year, according to the US-based Chinese-language newspaper World Journal.
Other passengers asked his parents to take him to the toilet, but they insisted he go on his seat which they had covered with newspaper, the report said.
