United Airlines flight 2080 from Tampa to Newark declared a medical emergency over Philadelphia on Sunday with a biohazard on board.
Passengers had been told after takeoff that “they would not be permitted to leave their seats” for the entire flight due to weather-related turbulence expected for the full flight. Cabin crew would not be getting up, either – and “that includes to unlock the bathroom doors.”
There really was quite a bit of weather.
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Those on board, naturally, began getting antsy. It doesn’t appear they were told prior to the flight they would not have bathroom access. On a departure from Florida.
The median age of people on this flight is probably 68. People are starting to hit the emergency call button. Multiple times. I am praying there has not been a bio hazard accident. This is about to get wild.
The flight got priority to land, arriving earlier than expected at Newark and with a flight time 23 minutes shorter than the day before. That’s because of the medical emergency that gave them a “sling shot to front of the line to Newark approach.”
A “young boy who they basically had to have two Port Authority officers slowly shuffle down the aisle” had wound up “throwing up multiple times” on the flight. “Blood present. Not pretty. That plane is now a biohazard.” Much more time in the air without lavatories and there would have been other biohazards, too, one imagines.
One flight attendant offers that this is going to be standard procedure during turbulence,
[United] just sent an email out 3 days that we are not to get up during turbulence to unlock the lavs for passengers. i agree this is a huge issue, i think we need to stop being required to lock them before takeoff for instances like this because its unfair to passengers but also completely unsafe for us to risk our safety to unlock it
Normally it’s fine – at your own risk – to use the lavatory when the seat belt sign is on. When you ask a flight attendant if it’s ok they aren’t going to say that it is (they don’t want to assume liability) but they usually won’t stop you. If the lavatories are locked, though, you’re out of luck.
American Airlines has flown New York to Chicago without a lavatory before but passengers knew in advance they’d have to hold it for the duration of the trip. (On a flight to Hawaii, American told passengers to go in a bottle when the lavatories became inoperable.)
There’s a certain length of flight where you might choose not to delay or cancel over a lavatory. At least if passengers know about the issue in advance they can make a quick calculation over whether they’re capable of flying under those conditions (on the Florida departure some may even be wearing Depends!). Without advance warning though things can get pretty dicey pretty fast.
Well, they would have to divert and I guess I would get banned, but at my age, not possible. Locking lavatories should be against FAA rules.
Completely asinine and wrong – for obvious reasons.
It seems to me if the turbulence is forecasted to be that severe, they ought to offer passengers the option to rebook on a different flight.
Surprising folks with zero bathroom privileges seems the wrong way to go.
Why do they lock the bathrooms?
What was worse: the flight, the origin, or the destination? I kid. I’ve lived in both areas. There are parts that are objectively ‘dumps,’ but then again Gasparilla is a helluva good time, the Ironbound has the best Portuguese cuisine outside of Portugal. Oh, I have little good to say about United in this case—sounds awful. Bah!
They should have passed out loperamide prior to the flight to deal with number two and maybe bottles for number one (I occasionally use loperamide when necessary). As for puking, a sensitive stomach and turbulence can be a bad combination. An accurate weather forecast would have been available several hours before the flight so an announcement should have been made about the situation before boarding. I am almost certain that the crew knew the situation prior to boarding.
you can unlock the bathrooms yourself. I am sure there are videos etc online. It does not require a key or anything
Trump comes fully dressed and prepared for such inconveniences I hear….
Lol people are gonna start using the washroom in the back galley where the FAs are sitting.
Can’t one just unlock the bathroom door the same way the FA’s lock it?
Easy: cancel or delay the flight.
These US airlines have truly no respect for passengers.
jamesb2147 wrote:
“Why do they lock the bathrooms?”
Locking all the aircraft toilets helps prevent passengers from drinking the toxic toilet blue juice when the flight attendants are unable to deliver a beverage service due to no catering service or turbulence.
Make / sell diapers at the gate. worst case scenario, take a leak and or dump in a vomit bag. Note to self: I’m going to start packing a couple of vomit bags in my carry on in case I have a fecal crisis while flying.
Just when you’ve heard it all… how much are eggs today?, asking for a friend.
I wear adult diapers when flying all the time. It’s convenient to be able to order a few cocktails and not worry about getting up to go to the lav, and they make pretty high end diapers now that don’t feel soggy when wet. The Megamax line is perfect for flying, which is sold on the NorthShoreCare website. I highly recommend them.
I have a memory of flying from Accra to Nairobi years ago, during which we encountered significant turbulance which shook oxygen ⁵masks out of their storage cavities throughout the cabinand tossed thhe plane around abit.Scary. I realized I was not short of breath and didn’t need the oxygen. more recently I have heard global warrming makes air turbulance more common.so much for paying attention to keeping the earth temperature from rising from fossil fuels.