Penalty For Using Wrong Lav
 

FA's on a 739 transcon were determined to keep all 156 in the Main Cabin from accessing the front lav. They made reference to unspecified consequences.

What might those entail? Has anyone paid a price?

One of the back toilets was out of commission. Rows 1-5 used one while 26 rows had two in the rear. Accordingly, Comfort+ gets no waiver and is literally last in line for "relief."

I suppose they could hit you with the vague: "Interfering with a flight crew" or "failure to follow crew instructions". I seriously doubt any prosecutor would pursue that case though...and the airline wouldn't want all the negative press.

That is the largest capacity aircraft in DL's fleet that does not have a mid-cabin lavatory. Definitely sucks for C+. I imagine they wanted to prevent a crowd standing around up front, but...

If I was in C+ I would send a polite note of inquiry to DL about that policy and how it might change when a rear lavatory is down. I mean you can easily see from most C+ seats if the front lav is open so if you just get up when it is unoccupied, it should not be a disruption at all.

It is obvious from the new boarding structure that DL is really trying to create value in C+ and this anecdote is a great way to point out a negative value to C+ if this truly is policy.

I was on JFK to SDQ recently and had an FA force it. He would send everyone even the elderly to the back of the bus.

The TSA has weighed in on staying in one's cabin on international flights.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/aa-eco......-bathrooms/

Still unlikely, but FAA does have civil authority to propose fines up to $13,333. Those are theoretically public, but they are not publicized.

My general view of these things is that I don't have any desire to find the one FA who turns this into a "federal case". Even if the US Attorney refused to prosecute, this could be an unpleasant experience.

The lavs flush backwards for people in the wrong cabin.

I thought FA's and Pilots have ultimate authority once airborne.

There is no faa rule about which lav to use. But there is a state dept one that passengers are not allowed to congregate in groups around the toilets nor anywhere in the aircraft." This all happened post 9/11. I think some airlines and FA have used the congregate rule to the lav rule. The following is a suit a first class passenger did against Alaska when the first lav was full of economy passengers.
https://onemileatatime.com/lawsuit-a...avatory-usage/

But if the airline has made such a rule and the FAA has approved it, then it sticks

I guess it all comes down to what type of confrontation you are willing to deal with...

I will say that FAs need to use an ounce of common sense in situations where DL chooses to deploy them with an aircraft that has a lav INOP. It's annoying for everyone involved, but a little bit of grace and dignity goes a long way. Have passengers queue up at the curtain, and give F passengers who need to get up priority to jump the queue. It's not rocket science.

To be precise, there is no DHS rule on domestic flights. However, if a carrier chooses to include the requirement that pax remain in their ticketed cabin as part of the carrier's safety & security policy and that policy is then filed with FAA, it is a violation of FAA rules. Same difference.