Passenger Spends 5 Hours In The Lavatory To Avoid Spreading Covid-19

Flights have diverted when passengers spent too long in the lavatory, or left their electronic devices behind there. But passengers don’t usually spend the bulk of the flight inside except when airlines take off with more passegners than seats.

One woman though spent 5 hours in the lavatory of her Icelandair flight because she tested herself for Covid while in the air, found she was positive, and was determined not to expose other passengers to the virus.

The Michigan school teacher’s throat became sore halfway through her flight from Chicago to Reykjavík on December 20, so she took a rapid test out of her carry on bag, went to the lavatory, and “within what felt like two seconds there were two lines (indicating a positive test),” she told NBC News in an interview.

So she isolated herself in the lavatory for the remaining roughly 5 hours of the flight, while a member of the cabin crew delivered ‘room service’ food and drinks as needed.

Naturally she TikTok’d from the lav and it’s been viewed over 4 million times.

@marisaefotieo

Shout out to @Icelandair for my VIP quarantine quarters.. #luxuryliving #imsolucky #covid #vaccinated #fyp #viralvideotiktok #quarantine

♬ I’m So Lucky Lucky – Grandzz

On arrival in Iceland she had to quarantine in a Red Cross hotel, where the flight attendant who assisted her during the trip even brought her a care package.

If she hadn’t tested herself she’d have presumably been permitted to enter the country without quarantine. Although she wound up having to expose herself to others, and expose others to her, even while in quarantine because a fire alarm went off.

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. Gary – assume you know the flight didn’t got to Reykjavik – Iceland’s international airport is in in Keflavik (about an hour from Reykjavik). Kind of lazy on your part to post this. On the other hand maybe you haven’t been and are clueless (wonderful country and making my 2nd trip in 2022) but still easy to check for accuracy.

  2. She is so concerned, and yet doesn’t bother to wear a proper mask. Just a cloth mask over a surgical mask.
    Still, it’s nice of her to isolate herself. We should applaud her and her honesty.

  3. It’s nice to see someone considerate of other people’s health. That’s not too common these days.

  4. Really sounds like she knew or had reason to know that she might have covid before she got on the plane. Prior to the flight she took five rapid tests and two PCR tests. That is not normal and suggests that she knew she was exposed to covid or was experiencing symptoms and was concerned that she was infected yet she still decided to engage in international travel even though we know it can take awhile before tests start coming back positive after infection.

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