The Case of the Missing Lavatories
 

Just flew the non-stop EWR-MXP and back in Business First on a 767-400. The seat map showed (and continues to show) 2 lavatories at the front of BF, 2 immediately behind, and 3 in the middle of coach.

But there were no lavs in the front of BF on either of my flights. FAs told me the plane had been reconfigured to add more BF seats.

BF passengers had to use the lavs behind BF, which were roped off from coach. Coach pax -- 200 or so of them -- seemed to have only the 3 in the middle of the cabin. I couldn't see all the back -- maybe 2 lavs were added there? From where I sat, it looked like a net reduction from 7 to 5.

Is this a trend? If so, certainly not a welcome one -- on any flight, but particularly international ones.

Yes, the 203 Economy and Economy Plus passengers have to share the three mid-cabin lavs.

To me, they should allow the E+ passengers to also use the BF lavs. Then again, there are already 39 in BF.

When converted from the old recliner seats to the lie flat seats, the front lav was removed -- UA 764 seatmaps -- and appears the booking engine seat map is not correct.

The present TATL versions is 39BF, 70E+ (including row 28) and 133E-. 33 fewer economy seats and 19 more BF (nearly doubled) the older version. If anything the BF folks are getting the biggest change.

There are actually four lavs in the middle of Economy on the 764. The map is wrong there too. There used to be two lavs facing each other in the center section between doors 3L/R, now they sit next to each other and are accessible from the aisle. There is no crossaisle here anymore, which is problematic for flight attendants and passengers trying to cross over from one aisle to the other.

It's only 4 more BF seats - the old 764s had 35.

There were two different 764s. A high density domestic (20 F) and an international version (35 F) so you both are technically correct.

When I look at the reconfigured 764 seat map I don't see any lavs in the front?? :confused:

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...R/default.aspx

Did they just change it or something?

Edit... just pulled up a dummy booking and as WineCountryUA suspected the booking engine shows lavs in the front so it is incorrect.

I don't like that ratio if I am in J/C. I don't like the ratio now in C/J.

So wait, if there's no lav's in front of the BF cabin, the pilots have to walk all the way to the back of the BF cabin to use the lav?

Damn. That sucks for them too.

I was just on this type of plane last Saturday EWR-HNL. The lavs are behind BF and in front of E+ and they are roped off, but I saw a few E+ passengers use it, which makes sense to me since it is right there.

I was on that flight on Saturday as well with my wife in 1K&L. During the first half of the flight, it seemed like the E+ passengers would just disregard the rope between BF & Y and there were some pretty long queues that developed. It seemed to get better as the flight went on though.

Wow, long lines for the lav is not what I was hoping for in BF.
That is frankly one of the benefits...not having to wait forever. Did the FA make any effort to have people use the lav in their assigned cabin?

I think the FAs did start enforcing this mid-way through the flight and, as I mentioned before, it did get better (thankfully!) I didn't have to wait long at all during the last half of the flight.

I did actually hear the FA's talking about the lack of a crossover aisle in coach, as EWR764 mentioned. So I guess there were 4 lavs in the middle. Didn't help BF, however.

And yes, warreng24, the pilots and the FA's had to walk thru BF to use the lavs behind it. They did not appear to be amused about this.

And I totally agree with dahaberm: having long queues in BF is NOT good. On my flights, it looked like they did enforce the using lavs in your own cabin...but we still had to wait and wait.

Really, it's ridiculous that they've done this on an international flight. People aren't just popping into the lav for a minute. They're brushing their teeth and dealing with contact lenses and pulling themselves together...

Awesome, I was in 1D.

Yeah it was bad at first but got better near the end. I just saw people going in it, I never had to wait though.

Why do I want to say "And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog too?"

Sorry i had to... :P

-Cle-

While I appreciate the extra 4 BF Seats, I think (and so do several FA's I discussed it with) that they should have left one of the Forwards Lavs.

I recently flew EWR-MXP on the B764 - from my seat in row 34 (E- behind the block of lavs at door 3L/R), things didn't seem that bad. The purser did announce a request to respect the rope dividing the cabin (which sounded like more than the "please use the lavatory in your ticketed cabin" anouncement). The F/As that I spoke with in the rear galley didn't seem too happy that lavs were removed to accommodate extra seats.

In my opinion, things would have been worse in the days when everyone watched the same movie together - the queues got quite bad when the credits rolled. Now, with AVOD, lav use is more distributed throughout the flight.

There are 6 lavs total. 2 at doors 2L/2R and 4 at doors 3L/3R. The lavs at door 2 are for BF customers, and the 4 lavs at door 3 are for Y customers.

True that there were two different 767-400s although only the 35-seater in CO parlance was "764"; the 20-seater was the "76H". ;)

Are all the 76Hs getting converted to the same 39-203 config as the 764s? United web site still shows the old 20-236 76H as "Version 2" ...

EDIT: Fleet update thread link shows all the 76Hs converted (last one in shop now), so I guess UA.com will be updated soon to delete Version 2.

Yes last one is in the shop. UA.com also needs to update to remove the 735 as well as the 762.

Did they make all the BF passengers go back into E+ and then roll food carts across the aisles before the pilot came out of the cockpit? :p;)