Soaked From A Leaking Restroom

In June 2000, I was flying back from Helsinki, Finland, to New York LaGuardia. It was quite a large plane that had two “sections” of coach class, separated by a pair of restrooms. I was seated in the first row behind those restrooms. Since it was a long 7-8 hour flight, I decided to make myself comfortable: I grabbed a pillow and blanket, and slipped off my shoes to relax in my sock-feet.

Much to my surprise, I awakened from my sleep to find that my socks were soaking wet. I looked down and noticed that the carpet at my feet was saturated. Thinking, perhaps, a drink had been spilled, I looked around for an empty cup, but found none.

I bent down to smell my sock-feet (somehow I thought it was smart to smell them!) and they reeked of urine! I got out of my seat and smelled the saturated floor…. Urine!

Wow, this was absolutely disgusting. I sat for quite a while, debating whether to make a stink (no pun intended!) about this, but realized that a leaking restroom was clearly unacceptable. I notified a flight attendant, who also proceeded to sniff the floor, and she was horrified. She apologized profusely and said she would notify the rest of the staff, the pilot, and her management when they landed.

Much to my surprise, the pilot personally approached me at the end of the flight and presented me with two bottles of wine. I was also contacted by the airline a few days later and given a pass for a free ticket to anywhere in the lower 48 states.

Pretty good customer service considering the situation. I wish the airlines were always like this!!!

Tagged as: flight attendant, lavatory, odor, pee, pilot