BA Passenger Who Sat on Urine-Soaked Seat Dissatisfied With Airline’s Handling of Incident
Jackie Reddy October 22, 2018
Andy Vicary was traveling business class on a British Airways flight from the UK to Jamaica when he sat on a urine-soaked plane seat. While he was able to change into dry clothing and BA crew offered him assistance, he says that he is dissatisfied with the way that the carrier handled the incident.
A business class British Airways (BA) passenger was dismayed to find his seat soaked in urine on a flight to Jamaica and says that he is dissatisfied with the way that the carrier handled his complaint, reports Mirror.co.uk.
Andy Vicary was traveling from the UK to the Caribbean with his wife and, explaining what happened to Gloucestershire Live, he said, “We were on board the plane and made our way to our seats and so I sat down with a glass of champagne and thought ‘this is brilliant.’ Then I noticed that the pillow that I was sat on was a little damp and I stood up and then so were my trousers.”
“I turned the pillow over and you could see that the pillow and the entire seat was saturated in urine…I had to move seats and I was not able to sit with my wife for the flight which was really disappointing as well,” he added.
He was forced to change into a set of clothing stowed in his hand luggage, and due to a lack of laundry facilities at his accommodation in Jamaica, Vicary said that his designer jeans had to be thrown out.
Commenting on the compensation offered by BA, Vicary said, “The company offered me 40,000 air miles which for me just didn’t seem enough to compensate what had happened … The lady at British Airways who dealt with the complaint was very nice and everything but I really do not think that they were right to offer me air miles.”
Vicary said that the airline did not offer to replace his designer jeans, which cost £150 ($194). Vicary’s complaint was eventually passed to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), a resolution consultancy service. CEDR, however, found that BA’s compensation offer to Vicary was fair.
Offering comment on behalf of the carrier, a spokesperson said, “We apologized to Mr Vicary, moved him to another seat and offered him and his wife enough Avios for an upgrade to business class the next time they fly with us.”
[Photo :Shutterstock]
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Oh dear, I have just had a similar issue although it was dry - it wreaked to make me feel sickly and I felt kinda absorbent somewhat despite it being physically dry! This time Wizz Air albeit a so called budget airline - it was not even a reasonable experience.... Flight: 2018/10/25 BTS - LTN 4482 Complaint: Having found I could not checkin via your app on thu eve flight from BTS to LTN due to either/or the app crashing on launch or having deleted and re loaded the app reaching the end of the checkin process & some other error message shows saying “ERROR Sorry, something went wrong” (really???) and then been forced to then pay 35euros fee at the airport with no staff to escalate issue to which was bad enough, once onboard in seat 21F - the seat wreaked of disgusting urine where someone has urinated and then I had to switch to another seat due to the awful smell. This is disgusting and the seat area needs to be disinfected for hygiene reasons. A young child will get sick very easily if not done.
Moving him to another seat is what they should have done to resolve the issue. Paying for the jeans is what he is entitled to as the seat was their responsibility to clean. The air miles are what he deserved for the disruption...end of.
@dgcpaphd Early in a flight from EWR-LAS I accidentally spilled a cup of Diet Coke onto my lap. My seat got soaked, and so did my jeans. Despite copious amounts of paper towels provided by the FA, my (lightweight) pants did not dry, and I sat in misery throughout the entire flight. Those seats retain liquid! Even though it wasn't urine, I felt sorry for the next passenger who got to sit there. I assume it was business as usual and they did nothing to swap out the seat after landing. While I question the unavailability of laundry facilities at the OP's destination, I personally can attest to the great discomfort he felt.
What was the cost of the ticket? We have to look at it from the standpoint that if BA marketed a urine-soaked seat from UK-Jamaica they would have probably not been able to sell it. And not being able to sit next to a companion can also seriously ruin a flight. He's pretty much entitled to a full refund IMO.
That wasn't NEARLY enough compensation. Dude sat in someone's pee. That's ridiculous. At the very least, he and his wife should have been offered 2 R/T biz class vouchers for future flights. That ruined the flight for both of them!