Cape Air Passenger’s Desperate Move: Uses Paper Bag as Emergency Lavatory Mid-Flight [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • If you’re flying to Augusta, Rockland, or Bar Harbor Maine it’s probably on a Cape Air 9-seat aircraft. 9 seats allows just one pilot, and no flight attendant required.

    Cape Air doesn’t have lavatories, so… when he had to go, a passenger whipped out a paper bag.

  • Further details on Cathay Pacific’s new Aria Suite business class

  • Grand Junction, Colorado will get at least a daily Delta (SkyWest) CRJ-550 to Salt Lake City starting December 3 – with an agreement to operate the flight for a year, or until nearly $1.5 million in subsidies run out, whichever comes first. Delta last served the airport and route in January 2022.

  • I appear on the Miles-to-Go podcast talking about the best current loyalty programs, and the return of the Freddie Awards.

  • Spirit Airlines is “the Most Hated Airline in America. You’ll Miss It When It’s Gone.”

  • Insight into how absurdly we rate things here in the States…

  • The plane won’t be missed from the fleet, but the shrinking schedule disappoints.

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. I’m not sure that the story about the Cape Air flight is true but pee bags are easily available at the pharmacy.

  2. Re: 5 stars

    The same is mostly true for NYC. Any touristy located place with a 4.9+ and 1,000+ reviews achieved that by giving some incentive like a free appetizer for posting a 5 star review while you’re at the venue. Any restaurant with 4.9+ and too few (<100) reviews in NYC were mostly reviewed by the proprietor’s friends and family.

    A 4.6 signals probably okay. A 4.7-4.8 signals good. A 4.9 is sometimes achievable but more than likely indicates some type of gaming at play. Anything 4.5 and below gives me pause. Of course I always read the latest reviews no matter the star rating which could be outdated.

  3. @jns: Cape Air does have quite a few 90-120 minute flights on planes without a bathroom and unpressurized so it can be a little…. sporty. I’ve seen someone pee in an empty Starbucks glass coffee bottle on a flight across Montana. It happens. I know of the pee bags (with the chemical in the bottom to turn it into a gel) and they are widely used by pilots from Cessna up to fighters (or one airline pilot I jumpseated with who was so security paranoid he said the cockpit door would not open until we landed in 5 hours but don’t worry he had a stock of those bags, giddy up). I don’t think Cape Air stocks them but might not be a horrible idea.

  4. Grand Junction! Another example of crony capitalist Sky West. They start serving Grand Junction the day their subsidies in Casper end. My guess is the service lasts a year. Sky West is a horrible airline. By far, the worst Delta regional carrier. Grand Junction to Salt Lake City should be mainline. And frankly, I’m surprised there isn’t year-round service to Atlanta, given its proximity to ski resorts.

  5. I like the Embraer 175 & up planes. Since I plan far ahead, I end up in the “1 side” of the 1-2 F section.

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