United: 4 toilets for 200+ economy passengers???
 

Perhaps this is indelicate, but economy travel on United has become akin to youthful adventure travel. Their 767 has FOUR toilets to share among over 200 economy and economy plus passengers. On an overnight flight, in the second row of economy, I made the mistake of trying to pass the curtain to use the business class toilets, as access to mine were blocked by a cart. An indignant steward loudly refused passage! Asking for and being refused the use of a bathroom was a totally new and humiliating experience in my life - and it was on a plane that I paid a lot of money to ride on.

If United truly does not want to provide decent and civilized service to its economy passengers - who fill their planes - why not just stop accepting their business? After 20+ years of loyalty, and even with premier + status, I am so disturbed by this airline's dehumanizing treatment of economy passengers (inedible food, limited toilets, silly separate boarding carpets for different classes of passengers - all passing through the same door!!!) to continue to fly with them.

Sorry United, your new business plan has cost you a long-time, loyal customer. I will travel on one of your many competitors who pride themselves on their service to all of their valued customers.

Welcome to Flyertalk, but this is not unique to UA.

AA: 4 Y lavatories
DL: 4 Y lavs on the 300ER and 400ER
BA: 3 Y lavs on the -300
HA: 4 Y lavs on the -300
LAN: 4 Y lavs
US: 4 Y lavs

That was a quick search. Why do you think that UA is lavatory stingy?

If its an International flight to the US and there are requirements that require paxs to remain in their ticketed cabin. Also, Y on any airline basically sucks. Welcome to the real world.

The grass is not any less brown on the other side of the fence. Dehumanizing? From a first world problems perspective 50:1 is average, the ratio can get much worse.

Yes, and don't forget sometimes 1 or more of those facilities can be out of order! I've always wondered, whose fault is it if a passenger unable to access a facility due to congestion, has an "accident" possibly rendering unusable a seat.... who is liable for potential loss of revenue if plane is full and that seat can no longer be used?

I never thought 4 toilets for economy was too bad. It seemed like a pretty reasonable amount to me.

One of the perks of riding in business or first is that there is less competition for the toilets. And I think you'll find that many airlines will prevent passengers from Y trying to use the lavs in a different cabin.

Wirelessly posted (Samsung Galaxy S: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.6; en-us; SGH-T959V Build/GINGERBREAD) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Ratio of cell phones per person to toilets per person higher on United aircraft than in India.

:D

a long time and loyal customer probably wouldn't be shocked to find out that business/first class toilets are off limits to economy passengers. that's pretty standard for every airline.

You're a fast learner. :p

refused the use of a bathroom - This policy is stated as part of the safety announcements on most airlines I have flown in the US and Europe. Certainly has beens the case on UA, US, DL, AA, and LH. I've also found that if you're polite and explain that the cart is blocking your way, they'll either allow to use the lav, or to go through the galley so you can access the lav from the other aisle. PROTIP: Avoid going to the bathroom at the end of a movie, right before landing, or during drink/meal service.
Dehumanizing treatment - This seems a bit over-the-top. Do you feel dehumanized and humiliated every time someone is rude to you?
inedible food - this is purely subjective. certainly not gourmet, but inedible? Hardly. And, frankly, not very different from their competitors, imo.
limited toilets - Other airlines are the same. 767 configs range from 3 to 6 lavs in economy. United, in fact, has more configurations with 6 lavs (3) than it does configurations with 4 lavs (2). American, US, Delta and Air Canada are no different with respect to this particular aircraft.
silly separate boarding carpets - Many airlines do this, including Delta (Breezeway) and American (Priority AAccess boarding lanes).

Surprised that no one has said, "oh, the humanity!". :p

This rant was way off-target; carriers have been treating economy passengers as sub-human for quite some time now! And UA is no worse than many others.

Or "think of the children" ;)

Please continue to follow this discussion in the UA Forum.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

I think you were lucky to have 4 lavatories to use.
Last time when I flew Continental from MXP back to EWR, there were only 2
lavatories available. The other 2 were broken. They knew this before departure
but they decided to take off anyway to save money.
Right after the FAs were able to move, they block those 2 lavatories and
only left 2 for people sat in Y. It was fortunately that we didn't divert due to
toilet.:p

Try a sUA 777 (new configuration) with 221 E and E+ seats with 4 lavs.