Passmethesickbag

Indeed.... I have a strong preference for prenatal over postnatal babies on planes.

toomanybooks

Yeah, have her pee on the floor next time. Let the FAs work on that for a while.

If they want to arrest/detain/punish her for that, the ensuing Internet storm would make "United Breaks Guitars" look like nothing.

fastair

I don't think that helped Gerard Depardieu's career. http://news.travel.aol.com/2011/08/1...throom-update/. It didn't make the airline look bad, it made Gerard look bad.

JNelson113

Wow, you must not come to the U.S. very often! Trust me, there is plenty of cursing. However, on an airplane the actions of one unbalanced person can have serious consequences for the other passengers. You can't just leave the situation, like you can on the ground. Because of that, people who appear out of control and about to violate the social contract of reasonable behavior get extra special attention.

hobo13

I'll just say that if I'm in an 'emergency bathroom' situation, it doesn't matter what the purser says, I'm going to the nearest lav regardless of the cabin.

She may TELL you that you can't do that, but she's almost certainly not going to physically stop you. So get in, lock the door, do your business, and ask forgiveness on the way back to your seat.

The problem is that you got into a pissing match which seems to demonstrate that it wasn't really an emergency after all.

toomanybooks

Was Gerard pregnant and incontinent at the time?

fastair

He allegedly (per the story) had prostate issues. The greates YouTube of all times IMHO as a disliker of Mr CNN Vanderbilt (Anderson Cooper) is the day he editorialized on this. Just throw Anderson cooper and depardieu on a YouTube search and click on the longest video. If you aren't a fan, it's worth the effort.

halls120

Which is why the best solution is to just head for the lav and take care of business. If the outcome of this "self-help" is that I'm greeted by law enforcement when we arrive, I'll be happy to defend my actions.

toomanybooks

If the cops arrest/detain the pregnant lady, she can pee on their floor as well. Serve them right.

Really, unless you have been heavily pregnant or living with such a woman, you have no idea how often the peeing is. CONSTANT. And often unpredictable.

Passmethesickbag

Care to rephrase that?

wethereyet

fastair, you put a lot of time and effort into finding a way to "penalize" a customer. It would be nice is you and your fellow workers would spend more effort actually avoiding these situations and taking an effort to actually HELP pax/customers. The OP's reaction was to what is a pervasive behavior of UA employees being adversarial. Lack of accomodation by an FA, IMO, is really what the focus should be on.

So what if OP was arrested even with hair splitting? You still have an FA with poor customer service and an unhappy customer. So tell me again who loses?

fastair

I spend zero minutes/day looking at ways to penalize any customers. When I am on my own time/dime, I use the public internet for my postings so as to not use any of UA's internal resources for personal use. UA's internal resources are not availbale to me on my time/dime for my pleasure, so what you get are my personal opinions, nothing related to what I do on the company's dime/time.

UA would not want me acting as a rep for them where I am not supervised by them. Most likely a very good decision, as my non-work personality likes to debate and play devil's advocate. Hardly things I do when on the clock.

On the other hand, If you come across me at work, you will see a model employee. I don't log onto FT, and only use the internet when trying to make small talk with customers about their travels, or when looking for creative routing solutions that Shares doesn't assist me with.

I don't expect you to understand that on my time and equipment, that I should not be held to the same expectations I am held to when I am being paid to represent my employeer. I do expect you to read the signature on the bottom of each of my posts, explaining that this is me posting here, I am not UAInsider or any other rep of the company, just a man with his own opinions, and own computer.

mgcsinc

^

I not infrequently disagree with you here. But I never have gotten the idea that you're a "bad employee" -- quite the opposite. You seem to be interested in understanding the technology better than many of your brethren, and using it to assist customers.

I appreciate you coming here and giving us the inside scoop.

wethereyet

I never said you were on company time. But your posts here seem to be effort looking for ways to inflict penalty on a customer rather than discuss what a solution would be.

I'd like to see discussion on how to resolve the ridiculus issue of front cabin lav sitting unused while there can be a line 5+ deep in back on a domestic single aisle aircraft. That's really the heart of the issue.

It IS going to irritate customers with status quo so why not figure out a etter solution? When a line is forming in back I fully support the idea of FAs proactively having a pax or two use the front lav. from the line?

fastair

I understand. Perhaps you don't realize that I rarely fly. A couple of trips a year on vacation, maybe a trip or two to visit the folks. My advice on what to do on board is most likely not that great. My advice as to what NOT to do on board is pretty good, as a NRSA my entire life (I was an (2) separate NRSA egg and sperm, an NRSA fetus, an NRSA infant, NRSA thru college, then an NRSA as a vacationing employee) I was raised to blend in, cause no scenes, do what I am told, question nothing, and act like a cushion on a seat, except I was told to wear a suit and tie, which hopefully, doesn't blend into the cushions on the aircraft.

Perhaps you could get better advice on what to do on a plane from a flight attendant or another passenger. If you want advice as to what to do in a gate room, I'm your man. If you want advice as to what not to do at a gate, I'm your man. For instance, right before boarding, at least 1x/day on average, someone asks me "Do I have time to go to the bathroom." My reply is "That is something only you can answer, the risk is yours, I don't know how much time you need, what you have to do, but when you've gotta go, you've gotta go, but that will not impact the time the door to the jetbridge closes which will be in 35 min. There are bathrooms on the plane if you think you may need more time than that."

As far as I've heard, Y passengers use the Y lav, F passengers use the F lav, at least I believe that is what the flight attendant said on the PA for my last flight (and it was on AA, not UA, although my previous set of flights was on UA, and I think they said the same thing.

If my use of humor and linkings to googleable things doesn't solve your problems, they certanly don't make them worse, and give some a chuckle. I'm a big fan of levity.