The new United Airlines Airbus A321neo came with a number of challenges. Early on United had to ground the fleet because they forgot to ask for a no smoking sign waiver. This is something all new aircraft needed.
- Regulations said that no smoking signs have to be able to be controlled by crew so they can be turned on and off.
- But since onboard smoking is illegal, they no longer turn off.
- Flying without smoking signs that turn off was also illegal though
- Without a waiver, United wasn’t allowed to fly the planes.
There’s another, more practical problem with the aircraft. Its aft galley design is drawing ire from flight attendants because the “space flex galley” places crew in a precarious position.
They want to cram in as many passengers as possible. Every inch that’s used for something else – like lavatories and gallies – is seen as money left on the table. So two lavatories are tucked into a confined half-galley space and one even has a flight attendant jumpseat fixed to its door, while another jumpseat is positioned directly opposite the bathroom doors. A passenger trying to leave the lavatory during turbulence can mean slamming the door against a crewmember’s knee.
Passengers get up to use lavatories when the seat belt sign is on. It’s on a lot when things aren’t truly dangerous, and the need to use the lav is clear and immediate. So most do a quick calculation and figure it’s fine. But what does the crew do then? They either have to stand themselves, to let passengers through, or block their way. Officially, when crew are told to be seated, they aren’t supposed to move to let passengers use the lav.
United Airlines has distributed memos directing flight attendants to remain seated when the seatbelt sign is on, avoid injury and don’t make lavatories available to customers.
With the A321N becoming more frequent, please keep this in mind.
byu/InformalCommittee507 inunitedairlines
When Lufthansa installed similar crew jumpseats, they also gave them folding camping chairs to sit in when there’s no turbulence and they aren’t required to be seated, so they can sit without blocking passengers.
Former American Airlines CEO Doug Parker mocked Delta for doing something like this, saying,
What did Delta do with these same lavs though, Delta had like the crew seat on the door or some ridiculous thing (cackles) that’s not a threat, I just.. I don’t know why I felt.. that’s really funny.. I don’t know why I felt compelled..
He later doubled down made the same point,
Delta has done an amazing job with their product and their customer service. They get more seats on the same size airplane than we do. They do things for example like put flight attendant jump seats on the door of the restroom. I promise. You can’t sit in your jump seat if someone wants to use the restroom. We’re not ever gonna do anything like that.
Of course, American Airlines failed to build a mockup of their new standard domestic interior before deploying it and retrofitting planes with it (Project Oasis) leading them to do a second retrofit (Project Kodiak) to address some of their mistakes. And they, too, installed smaller lavatories whose doors opened into each other, and with smaller wash basins that sprayed water back at passengers.
Surely there’s some limit to how much space can be squeezed – only time will tell if we’ve found it yet.
Fly the Friendly Skies.
How positively ghetto
This is an Airbus design, not specific to United Airlines. Some airlines are blocking passenger seats for use by flight attendants. That kind of defeats the space saving purpose, doesn’t it?
This design seems like a fail by Airbus.
Wait, what? Doug Parker was actually right about something? Well, a broken clock is right twice a day!
This is so dangerous for the flight attendants. Not safe at all. What idiot designed this? What idiot approved this? Such contempt for the flight attendants.
Air Bus fail
Thankfully neither DL or AA chose to use spaceflex lavs for their A321neos. Although it remains to be seen what AA does with the A319s when they add in another row of F.
Horrible design .
Cabin crew do not control the smoking signs. Those are controlled from the cockpit.
The SpaceFlex lavatories are atrocious, especially the outboard side.
They’re too small, too narrow, too low (the outboard side loo especially) and claustrophobic.
Horrible & awful in every way!
Greed at all costs. Employees’ & passengers’ safety & comfort be damned.
Typical nowadays.
At this point, why not sell the lavatory as a seat—Economy Minus.
United’s Boeing sells Premium Plus extra legroom seats on the 737-900, often for over $100, and 3 of those are directly in front of the side facing lav, and one aisle seat is literally in the swing radius of the opening lav door. Outrageous! If I paid for any of those seats I would be pissed. I almost did but luckily noticed the arrangement on an earlier flight and was able to change my seat in the nick of time.
United sells Premium Plus extra legroom seats on the Boeing 737-900, often for over $100, and 3 of those are directly in front of the side facing lav, and one aisle seat is literally in the swing radius of the opening lav door. Outrageous! If I paid for any of those seats I would be pissed. I almost did but luckily noticed the arrangement on an earlier flight and was able to change my seat in the nick of time.
What a Sh!tty Jumpseat!!!
What, no credit card reader directly above the jumpseat to facilitate passenger lav access?
*galleys*
United has 40 less seats in these aircraft than Frontier and 35 less than Spirit.
Hardly “cramming in as many seats as possible”.
Looks like a Boeing ‘mole’ infiltrated ‘Scarebus’ and corrupted/sabotaged their engineering staff !
How discouraging, ‘Scarebus’ is starting to descend to Boeing’s level of greed/incompetence.
How did that lav/jump seat combo ever pass European/U.S regulatory authorities ?
Domestic coach is nothing more than a truck weighted down with chicken coops and the coops filled with so many chickens feathers are sticking out of the coops.
We can thank all the MBAs that have been unleashed upon business for this.
When safety in aviation is compromised over greed , then this the end of aviation.LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO BOING.OTHERS ARE NOT EXCLUSIONS.
I’ve flown on several airlines that now have a crew seat attached to the lavatory. That is obviously a stupid design on so many levels. Just this week I had to wait a few moments for a resting flight attendant to stand up to use the lav. Not sure why you can’t just praise Parker for recognizing the foolishness of this aircraft design and avoiding it.
I don’t know about United or Delta, but as far back as I can remember, AAL has valued it’s cabin crew less than the equipment. They even have life insurance on the crews,so in case of an accident, the company actually wins.
.
These have been in use in Europe with easyJet for years with the thinner healthier customers and crew, works fine in Europe but then Americans are fatter so maybe the lavs will be too small over there and the jump seat badly placed for overweight elderly crew.
At some point it will be an upgrade to sit in the flight attendant jump seat. When you purchase the ticket, check the boxes, you’ll read a safety card like in the exit row.
You get to be responsible for assisting in an evacuation like in the exit row while fulfilling a childhood dream of being a flight attendant. You’ll be closer to the beverage cart and more leg room! But you’ll have to wear an apron during service.
The actual flight attendants will be holograms.
See you in the future…
As a flight attendant for an airline that uses the neo, I can confidently say that the amount of hatred I have for this design can’t be put into words. Not only is the lavatory with the jumpseat attached to it is extremely cramped for whoever uses it, ultimately, the jumpseat is so uncomfortable and annoying to deal with. We have to lock up our jumpseat to give access to the lavatory and lock access to the lavatory to gain access to our jumpseat
We are no longer geese. We are now cattle. Trump can use these planes to send people to Gitmo.
At least the idiots trying to use the lav during approach are physically going to be blocked.
I’m surprised they didn’t think to put seatbelts on the toilets and let them double as jump seats. Do the no smoking signs have to be lit? Put up printed signs
And AA fully intends to install these on the A319 and A320 fleet during retrofits.
It is an abomination. Never thought I’d say this, but we actually miss Doug Parker.