AA 663 PHX-KOA: Passengers Asked to Urinate in Plastic Bags After Toilets Overflow
 

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/AA...492605611.html

I was on this flight last Friday. About midway through the flight the captain made an announcement re lavs overflowing, asking pax to refrain from bathroom use as much as possible prior to landing ("or else we'll have to turn around and go back to Phoenix"). Pretty unpleasant for a 6.5 hour flight and not a great start to a vacation, though I fortunately was not one of the unlucky ones asked to use a bottle or a bag as the article and video show. Received an email today from AA offering 30k miles for the inconvenience. Note I hadn't submitted a complaint yet, though had planned to do so once I had some free time on the weekend.

Anyone experienced something like this before? Definitely a first for me. Wondering what types of compensation have been given in similar situations.

Those 752s are the worst.

So were you able to "hold it" for 61/2 hours?

OP said this happened about halfway. So 3 hours or so is reasonable.

Why does a situation like this happen? Someone flushed something that clogged the system? Circuit breaker went? Flush system failure? Too many people using it so the tanks filled up?

I'm no aerospace engineer, but why not a urinal on a plane ? Does every pee event need to be washed into the hold with a gallon of blue liquid ?

Unfortunately yes, I had to.

The article I linked says it was because someone flushed a diaper down the toilet. FWIW it also says the passenger who recorded the video was given $240 in vouchers + 17k miles, which sounds roughly equivalent to what I got, i.e. ~29k miles at a 2 cpm valuation.

Planes don't use blue liquid anymore. They use a vacuum system that uses barely any water and as a result, the urinal vs toilet is a wash (pun intended). Urinal would take up more space too with no benefit.

On the older planes like 752's etc. they use the blue liquid still. I believe the liquid is recycled though through a filtration system. At this point I speculate it isn't worth the refit and cost of trying to change.

Obviously you havent experienced a no flush urinal before.

Maybe you should seek compensation from the person who flushed the diaper. Do they flush diapers in their home? Why would an airplane be any different. Oh that's right, most people are morons when they are on airplanes.

They should have shamed the person who ignored the placards and inconsiderately tried to flush the diaper. What a crappy (sorry couldn't resist) situation for everyone.

Maybe the passengers could have banded together and fashioned up a "tar and feather" situation with that blue flushing liquid and toilet paper.

Incorrect. 737s, the backbone of many airlines, still use blue juice. They might not use as much as before, but they still use it. I'm a ground handler, just serviced a 737 lav 20 minutes ago.

The problem is people flushing the wrong stuff, and/or many other things including lavs being serviced incorrectly. 757/767s are a pain in the ... to service and have multiple lavs, inexperienced lav guys often miss one. Or people who don't deal with these aircrafts that often will easily miss one. But that usually doesn't result in ALL the lavs failing.

yes I have.

The water savings compared to a vacuum flush are negligible. The space taken up by a urinal is worth more than the weight penalty of a few gallons of water. Heck, the sinks use plenty more.

I agree the issue is people flushing all kinds of stuff.

are you referring to blue juice down in the tank? Or blue juice being swirled in the loo to make stuff go down? The latter, the vast vast majority of AA's 737s do are vacuum flush, so the lav user does not ever see any blue juice. The former (in the tank), sure.