Galley Gossip: Passenger gets caught with pants down

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather,

Is it standard procedure for a flight attendant to force open a toilet occupied by a passenger if the plane is about to land? Under what circumstances has the flight attendant a right to do this?

Thanks,

Caught with My Pants Down

Dear Caught with My Pants Down,

I’m so sorry to hear you were caught with your pants down. I’m also sorry that a flight attendant had to see you that way. I’m sure it was embarrassing for both of you. On my flight from New York to Dallas last week I caught two passengers in the same position, but that’s just because they forgot to lock the door, not because I forced the thing open. So please, people, I beg you, do not forget to switch that little sign from vacant to occupied. That way we won’t have to avoid eye contact for the rest of the flight.

As for forcing a locked door open, it does not happen often. In fact I’ve only had to do it twice in my career and I’ve been flying for fourteen years. Once, not too long ago, I did it when I heard a young child yelling, “help, help, help!” because she couldn’t figure out how to unlock the lavatory door and another time when, seconds before departure, the passenger who had locked himself inside ignored our pleas to return to his seat.

“Sir, you need to come out! We can not depart until you take your seat!” my coworker cried, banging her fists on the accordion door. No answer. Just silence. Complete silence.

I gave it a try – knock, knock, knock! “Sir, are you okay in there?” Still no response.

“We’re coming in,” my coworker yelled, and two seconds later the door was pushed open. Startled, the man with the needle stuck in his arm jumped, causing it to pop out and blood to spurt all over the floor. The airplane was immediately taken out of service.

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Because your question is lacking in details, I can not answer as thoroughly as I’d like to. What I want to know is just how close to landing were you? Was it an International flight? Which airport were you flying into? Just how long did you stay in the bathroom? Were you unable to use it prior to landing? Or had you used it so often throughout the flight you may have raised a few eyebrows? Did you take anything into the bathroom with you, say a paper bag or something that might look suspicious? Were you sick? Did you answer the flight attendant when he or she knocked on the door and asked you to return to your seat? During the flight had you been rude or caused a problem in flight? Had the flight attendants already done their final compliance check and were ready to strap themselves into their jump seats while you were in the toilet? Your answers do make a difference.

While yes, you should have been in your seat, as per FAA regulations, regardless of what was going on during your flight, the flight attendants may not have pried the door open so quickly. They may have given you a few more seconds to pull your pants back up.

You did mention that the airplane was about to land, which leads me to believe the seat belt sign was on. Flight attendants are required to advise passengers to keep their seat belts fastened at all times, even when the seat belt sign is not on, and customers must comply with seat belt regulations at all times. Recently Scott Carmichael wrote about a passenger who was paralyzed from the neck down when she used the toilet on a Continental flight and the airplane hit turbulence. It happens. And it can happen even when the seat belt sign is not on. On the Continental flight the sudden drop threw the woman against the ceiling, fracturing her neck. For the record, the seat belt sign had been illuminated.

On descent flight attendants must be strapped into their jumpseats. With you locked in the bathroom you are not only a danger to them (if you were to fall on top of them), but to the passengers you must pass in order to get back to your seat, and the passenger who now must unbuckle their seat belt and stand up to let you back into your row. If something were to happen to you, or anyone seated around you, the flight attendants would not be able to help. The flight attendants job, at this stage in flight, is to man the emergency doors. Not take care of you.

No one wants to be caught with their pants down, I know that, and I am sorry that it had to happen to you. But flight attendants have a job to do and when the seat belt sign is on you should be in your seat with your belt fastened about you. Not in the lav. Especially on descent or when there’s turbulence!

To read more about turbulence in flight and why it’s important to keep your seat belt fastened at all times, check out my Galley Gossip post A question about turbulence and being scared at work.

Hope your next flight is a better one.

Heather Poole

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If you have a question email me at Skydoll123@yahoo.com

Photo courtesy of (lavatory) Daquella Manera, (Continental Airlines) Phinalanji

Flight attendant blocks man from using bathroom – has him arrested

by Scott Carmichael on

We’ve probably all heard the stern warning at the start of our flight telling us to use the bathroom in our own cabin.

The separation of the classes means only business class passengers are allowed to use the business class bathroom, and coach passengers need to use the smelly porta-potty in the rear of the plane.

But what do you do when you really have to go? Like after a meal you had in Honduras that isn’t sitting too well with you?

This is the dilemma faced by Joao Correa on his Delta Airlines flight back home last week.

The coach bathroom was blocked by a drinks cart, and when he politely asked a flight attendant if he could use the front bathroom, he was told “no”.

He tried to hold “it” in, but when things got too much, he sprinted up front and attempted to enter the bathroom. It was at this point when the flight attendant/bathroom cop stuck her arm in front of him and blocked the door.

The rest of the story has become part of a federal investigation, Mr Correa claims the flight attendant put her hand on his shoulder, and that he grabbed her arm to keep his balance, her side of the story claims he pushed her arm down and twisted it.
The flight attendant then called the pilot, who probably rolled his eyes and told her to let Mr. Correo just use the bathroom. He then returned to his seat and was quiet for the rest of the flight.

Upon landing at Atlanta airport, he was arrested and locked up for 2 nights before appearing before a judge.

Mr. Correa says he is “devastated’ by the whole incident, and I can’t blame him, it’s one thing to keep your plane secure and prevent people from walking into the wrong cabin, but when the other bathrooms are clearly blocked, and one of your passengers really has to go, you just let him go.

To actually put your arm in front of the bathroom door and block a passenger is pathetic, and I hope Delta Airlines realizes this. That said, if Mr. Correa really did injure the flight attendant, he should face the charges, but I’d say that 2 nights in jail is about the extent of what he should be punished with.

What do you think?

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Galley Gossip: Hottest trend on the airplane since the mile high club

by Heather Poole on

Checking your watch for the umpteenth time, you sigh, because you’re on the airplane waiting in line to use the bathroom and you’ve been waiting in line for a very long time. What’s strange is you’re next to go and have been for some time now. What the heck is going on in there?

You probably don’t want to know. What you do know is the passenger who went in there ten minutes ago can’t be doing that, at least not with another person, because they went in there alone. Then again some people join the mile high club while others prefer the solo aviators division.

“Excuse me, Miss,” you say, and when you say this you’re looking at me, and because I see you standing in front of a lavatory door that is occupied, I already know what you’re going to say before you even say it and I’m really, really, wishing you didn’t have to involve me.

“Whoever’s in there has been in there a very long time,” you tell me.

I nod, trying my best to look concerned, and while I’m nodding I’m praying the person who has been in the lavatory for a very long time will finally walk out. Please walk out! When they don’t walk out, I say, “Sometimes it takes some people a little longer than others.” Because it does. I mean it took me two years to even use the thing. For real.

“Can you at least knock on the door to make sure they’re alright?”

I take a deep breath, wondering why you can’t knock on the door yourself, because we both know you don’t really care whether or not they’re alright in there and I’m not the one who needs to use the loo, but I go ahead and do it anyway – knock knock, knocking my knuckles against the hard, cold door, and that’s when I hear a powerful flush.

I smile and state the obvious, “They should be out in a second.”

Suddenly the door swings opens and the passenger walks out. As the passenger passes you by, you think to yourself, surely they weren’t doing that, because they just don’t look like the type to do that – at least not on an airplane. So you play it safe, holding your breath as you walk inside, locking the door behind you. Hoping for the best, you finally exhale, and strangely there is no odor. You can’t believe it. Grabbing a paper towel, you wonder just what that passenger was doing in the bathroom for all that time.

Well I think I know. I’ve even got the photos to prove it. While working on my last Galley Gossip post about trusting fear (on and off the airplane), I needed to find a photograph of the lavatory to go along with it, so I logged onto Flickr.com and typed the words LAVATORY AIRPLANE and BATHROOM AIRPLANE into the search bar. I could not believe what popped up. In fact, I’ve already told everyone I know all about what I found. I had to tell someone!

So let me be the first to tell you that something very strange and disturbing, yet quite intriguing, is going on behind that locked lavatory door. Passengers, and I’m talking all kinds of passengers, are photographing themselves in the bathroom. What I want to know is how long has this been going on? And why didn’t anyone ever tell me? You’d think I would have seen all those cameras going into the bathroom! Oh you better believe I’ll be taking my own self portrait in the lav on my next flight to New York on Wednesday. Until then, check out these interesting shots..

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Photo courtesy of Dpstyles

Good news! Ryanair will NOT make you use coins to enter their bathrooms

by Scott Carmichael on

We’d forgive you if you accused us of being pro/anti Ryanair (depending on what you read).

In the past week we broke the news that the Ryanair CEO was considering introducing coin operated bathrooms on his flights.

Then we reported on remarks of a Ryanair spokesperson who claimed the esteemed Ryanair CEO was just screwing with us. Thankfully the official reply is out – Ryanair will NOT be introducing coin operated bathrooms on their flights.

They will be credit card operated.

That’s right, According to Ryanair, they have actually asked Boeing engineers to design a credit card operated lock that can be installed on the bathroom doors. That pretty much removes all concerns about not having enough change, or any worries about currency issues.

According to Ryanair, if 20% of their passengers use the bathroom on each flight, and they all pay 1 Pound for the right to pee or poo, they’ll earn an additional 15 Million Pounds a year (21 Million Dollars).

As usual, there is something smelly about this plan – the extra income does not take into account the cost of installing the actual credit card operated doors, or the extra manpower required to transfer all these transactions to some kind of computer at the end of the day.

Nor do they seem to worry about the possibility that the equipment will break down, and sooner or later someone will break it when they can’t get the damn thing to accept their hotel loyalty card as a valid method of payment.

We are already on our third installment of this silly idea, but I can’t help feel we are being involved in a funny hoax by the airline. Either way, Mr O’Leary and his airline are clearly masterminds at creating free PR – almost getting themselves on the same level as that other brilliant airline PR guy, Richard Branson.

I just hope Ryanair understands what they are getting themselves in to – many of our commenters already said they’d rather take a dump in the vomit bag than pay the airline.

Update: O’Leary has finally admitted that the whole thing was indeed a cheap PR stunt.

Alaska Airlines made fun of paid airplane bathrooms long before we did

by Scott Carmichael on

OK, so the whole Ryanair paid bathroom thing was probably just a hoax by the Ryanair CEO, or another of his cheeky ways to create some free publicity for his low cost airline.

But it turns out that we here at Gadling were not the first to make fun of the concept of a paid airplane bathroom – Alaska Airlines beat us to that way back in 1987 with this hilarious vintage commerical.

And is it just me, or does the passenger at 0:06 into this clip look like a young Andy Dick?