How is an airline not prepared for this kind of incident? It must happen all the time, you would assume they know how to properly clean it and dry it.
Most airlines contract third-party “groomers” that clean the seats and aisles between flights and have access to spare cushions to replace soiled ones “in relatively short order,” Dee said.
“You’ve got toddlers, infants, even adults who have certain accidents … it doesn’t happen every flight, but it certainly happens every day.”
But specialists say tight-packed schedules and flight delays squeezing turnaround times can put more pressure on crews to get back in the air as soon as possible.
“You’d be extending the ground time on the airplane to do the clean-up,” Gradek said, noting that crews have strict rules on their shift time, or “duty period.”
So basically the crew forced someone to sit in vomit so they wouldn’t have to work late? Sounds about right.
The two women spoke with the flight attendant, explaining that their seats were wet and there was visible vomit residue, Benson observed.
“The flight attendant was very apologetic but explained that the flight was full and there was nothing they could do,” Benson wrote in her post.
The women were eventually given wipes and blankets, and “settled in as best as they could,” she said in the interview, but then a pilot came and knelt down at eye level to the women.
“He said very plainly and very clearly that they had two options: that they could exit the plane on their own accord, and rearrange their flights themselves, or security would escort them off the plane, and they would be placed on a no-fly list,” Benson said.
“They asked him again, ‘Pardon me, what?’. He repeated it again, word for word.”
Benson rejected the pilot’s characterization of the women’s behaviour.
Who would just happily accept a vomit seat? This can get you off planes? We need better trains in this country.
Usually I expect pilots to help resolve the situation, not escalate it…
In all honesty it sounds to me like a game of telephone. The flight attendant probably said these people refused to sit down or were hesitant to sit down or something like that to the pilot.
The pilot then came to the back and took the flight attendant’s word for it, assumed the worst and didn’t bother to ask what the situation was.
Poor communication all around.
While possible that’s entirely unacceptable. Hopefully communication procedures will change as a result of this.
