FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Disgusting BA [reseated due to vomit smell]
Old Aug 16, 2019, 3:18 am
  #5  
corporate-wage-slave
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The OP has the most extraordinary bad luck in their travel arrangements but this case could have happened on any airline. This hasn't happened to me, but I have seen similar incidents affect nearby passengers. What happens is that someone is sick in their seat - pretty unusual on shorthaul - typically it would be during descent or when there is a long queue for the WC, and may well have been a young child. The sick bag is then placed into the seat back pocket, the cabin crew probably not informed by the passenger or their guardians, out of embarrassment. During shorthaul turnarounds it is unrealistic to expect that all of the 180 pockets is carefully checked in the 12 minutes (or less) that the cleaning crews have between flights, for the rare chance that something like this has happened. It should have been noticed at the end of day clean. Maybe they should have more time, but they are up against airlines that don't get any cleaning crews onboard during turnarounds and the evidence is that people prefer low fares to high. It would helped enormously if the sick passenger had made themselves known to the cabin crew, it was just an accident, nobody does this intentionally.

The same scenario would have happened on Swiss or easyJet, the two other airlines on this route, except at easyJet they would not have had the option to get the cleaners back on again. On all 3 airlines the pragmatic answer is to move someone to another seat, I hope the cabin crew were professional and apologetic to the OP.
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