Pooping on Planes, Demystified

Let’s talk about the one thing every traveler just completely loves: using the bathroom on a plane.

Everybody poops, you guys. It’s just that nobody wants to do it on a plane. But if you have to — and we all know sometimes you just have to — a former flight attendant has advice on the best time to do your business.

Erika Roth told Mel Magazine that the perfect time to visit the toilet on a flight is after the seatbelt sign goes off and before the drink service begins. That way, you’ll have a good five or ten minutes of uninterrupted time, usually with no one waiting outside the door either. Just make sure you are out of there before the 20-minute mark — by that point, a flight attendant will have to check on you.

But for the sake of the other passengers, Roth suggests holding it in as long as possible, because the smell can seep out into the cabin.

“Close quarters, poor ventilation and a lack of efficient plumbing — to be blunt, the stench can fill a cabin quickly,” she told Mel Magazine.

One flight even had to make an emergency landing once for just that reason. A British Airways flight in 2015 had to turn around and go back to London because of foul stench coming from an overflowed toilet. Cabin crew couldn’t fix the problem and the smell became unbearable to other passengers.

If you feel like that might happen to you, and you don’t want to be the sole cause of a diverted flight, Roth shared a trick to lessen the trauma of plane-pooping: “Ask an attendant for packets of coffee grounds, then hang them up in the lavatory. The grounds will soak up the odor.”

[Photo: Shutterstock]