Mauricio23

On Oct 18 I flew AC 837 from MAD to YYZ. As we were taxiing towards take-off, the SD announced that ALL the toilets on the left side of the plane would be inoperative, and to please use those on the right-hand side.

Normally 31C/H involve the tradeoff of being the only economy seats with decent legroom on the 787, but having people line-up for the toilet in front of you. 31C lucked out on this flight. I, seated in 31H, spent the entire 8 hours looking at other passengers' butts planted not two inches from my nose. Not my idea of in-flight entertainment. The poor sods in 31 DEF had to put up with a steady stream of people crossing from the left to the right side of the plane and back. Needless to say, after a couple of hours all toilets were a stinky mess.

Clearly the situation was known before takeoff, and a decision was made to fly anyways. And I appreciate that we got to YYZ on time. But at what point must the airline call a flight off? Is there an equation of flight length / number of operative toilets / load that must be followed? Nothing extreme happened on this particular flight, but it would only have taken one or two passengers with GI issues (I have been that passenger) for things to quickly become unmanageable.

james dean

Uggg, that sounds nasty.
Regarding go-no-go Captains call in conjunction with maintenance control and the Minimum Equipment List (MEL). While it's not a safety issue it sure the heck is a convenience issue. I guess I would rather get to YYZ verses a hugh delay or even a cancellation since I would normally have a connection to meet.
It seems there are lots of issues with the Lav's these days, not sure why but you see write-ups on the Aviation blogs for frequently than previous.

WaytoomuchEurope

Last year I was on a 78(8 or 9, don't recall) from YVR-PVG. We had a 2 hour delay while they fixed the port side lavs. They told us that regulations would not allow them to take-off because there is a defined ratio of working lavs to pax.

I have no specific data on what the numbers are so this post isn't that helpful except to say that the outcome for me was different AND it seems the Dreamliner has a flaw in this regard.

jc94

There was a short (1h) flight somewhere out East I think where AC asked pax if they wanted to take the flight without the one available washroom being available, or they could change for free onto a later flight. I believe @canadiancow posted about it a while ago, possibly EYW related?

Of course, major difference between a 1h Q400 flight and a ~8h TATL one. Wouldn't surprise me if there was a minimum requirement for longer flights, what the official ratio has to be however I'm not familiar with. I do know people who have flown on planes where half the J washrooms became unavailable due to overflowing though (not AC, surprisingly). Point is, the number of washrooms that are functional at the start of a flight doesn't always equal the number available at the end.

I too enjoy 31J for the legroom and also easy access when I do need to pop-in even if the pilot has forgotten to turn off the light. But being stuck there for a 7h TATL with all washrooms available vs a slightly longer flight with half of the Y lavs out of order ... shudder.

Also, left vs right can have different meanings depending upon which way you are facing

kevinharding

I had the same scenario on the same route on a Dreamliner this year. Strange that it always seems to be the left lavs.

jc94

yyznomad

Cow can write another app, and then everyone else can criticize him for doing it (par for the course, right?)

jc94

yyznomad

And that wiki has a link to a data entry interface that was slapped together quickly by him, IIRC.

In any case, to answer the question " How many toilets? "

Answer: IIRC, the 787-9 has 8 toilets. But I could be wrong.

skybluesea

delete

Mauricio23

Exact words used by the SD. And everyone correctly understood them to mean left when facing the direction of travel. A lot better than memorizing what port or starboard mean (which turns out to be "left or right when facing the direction of travel", duh).

songsc

Left and right are with respect to the direction of travel (ok, not during push back/power back). Doors are labeled as L1, L2, R1, R2, for example.

As for ships, the trick I learned was: PORT=LEFT as they both contain 4 letters.

balexis

On AC864 (YUL-LHR) last week, the SD announced the toilets would only be working while we would be at cruising altitude. It was either that or cancel the flight, and the captain decided to fly. It was not really bothersome since seat belt signs are on for most of the time not at cruising altitude anyway. Definitely not as bad as having only 50% of toilets available for the whole flight...

Plumber

Thats strange.

Can anybody here shed some light on what issue the Captain is solving by allowing the lav use only once at cruising altitude? Thanks.

songsc

Here is an uneducated guess. Vacuum (or near vacuum) is required for airplane toilets to function, it basically sucks everything into the storage tank. On the ground a vacuum pump is required to create this pressure difference. Once in the air, this air pressure difference can be produced by the altitude and speed. It is like opening a hatch slightly so that the cabin pressure will push everything out to the storage tank (not to the outside, at least claimed by manufactures). My guess is the vacuum pump is not working, hence toilets only work once at cruise altitude.