What On Earth Happened To Make This Airport Restroom Sign Necessary?

When you see a novel warning sign, it’s almost always in response to something a person actually did. No one thought to warn anyone before some idiot came along. Occasionally these sorts of signs make you really wonder about people, like “this motorcycle contains no edible parts” and cartons of eggs that warn “this product may contain eggs” (or jars of peanut butter that flag, “may contain nuts or nut products”).

Who are the people who need to be told “this electric drill is not intended for dental use” anyway?

Austin’s South Terminal is a separate structure from the main terminal, less than three quarters of a mile away but a 7 mile drive. It currently serves Frontier and Allegiant. This sign was just spotted in the men’s room there:

What in gods name was going on in the south terminal men’s room before this sign went up? from r/Austin

Traveling on a low cost carrier really is a different experience (although even Spirit Airlines pays the higher rents of the main terminal to avoid flying from here). I just have to wonder, what were Frontier and Allegiant passengers doing? And how would this even work?

I think what the airport is saying is that it’s not possible to social distance and have more than one person use a urinal at once, because standing side-by-side means people are too close – so take turns at the urinal, one at a time.

If I was designing an airport low cost terminal restroom, I’d just place a sign above the urinals, “Don’t eat the big white mint.”

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. We need a picture of the set up

    My guess is that there are 2 urinals. It’s telling you that 2 people can’t each use one of the urinals at the same time and social distance.

    Thus, even though there are 2 urinals you can only use one at a time.

  2. Reminds be of a time when the County of Santa Barbara built a new admin building and after completed the Health Department made their survey and on the seventh floor men’s room found that the three (3) side by side urinals were too close together. To solve the discrepancy the County removed one urinal from the right end. Did not solve the problem.

  3. Sunne,

    In a famous department store in San Francisco is a sign in the executive
    men’s room placed on the commode doors…………Only One Person in the
    Commode at a time………remember this is SF were aberrant sexual behavior
    is Not aberrant.

  4. Think that’s bad? from my wife’s lawyer’s office in Birmingham UK: (I’d post the picture if I could)
    “Sit on the toilet and don’t stand on it”, and, better yet
    “Don’t urinate or defecate on the floor”, “Don’t urinate on walls in cubicle”…..
    Clients probably regularly fly PIA………………

  5. Sunne, so now we all know u a homophobic bigot. And a proud bigot at that. U live under a rock

  6. There’s a rather lovely state park campground in VA with a sign asking people not to poop on the floor. I had a good laugh when I saw the sign, wondering what jerk would do such a thing, and sure enough the next morning there was a turd on the floor.

    I kept looking for cameras to see if this was some kind of human psychology experiment but never saw any.

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