Last week an explosion tore a hole in the side of a Qantas 747 over the Pacific. Yesterday a Cathay Pacific flight descending into Vancouver is reported to have lost a fuselage panel. In both cases, the aircraft and passengers are safe. These are high profile cases, but what about the toilet that doesn’t function, the seat that doesn’t recline and reading lights that don’t work. They speak volumes about attention to detail.
Along with the latest incident of fuselage damage only hitting the news this morning, breaking news about the Qantas incident reveals that the “black box” is providing no clues to the cause of the apparent explosion that tore a hole in the airplane’s wing.
A bigger mystery to passengers these days is the state of basic upkeep on everyday aircraft. Reclining seats don’t work, seat cushions are tired, headsets are scratchy, reading lights flicker and the aircraft toilets are failing at an alarming rate. These kinds of “little” maintenance issues are becoming more and more common these days. Airlines are obviously cutting back on taking care of the “little things.”
Reports of malfunctioning, overflowing toilets and noxious fumes are increasing.
The passengers on a recent United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Sydney probably wish they had. For reasons that are still a little murky, the toilets on the Boeing 747 began to clog up about halfway through the 14-hour flight. By the time the plane landed, only 2 of 15 lavatories were working.
What is noteworthy about the plumbing problem isn’t so much that it happened – although an almost complete failure of an aircraft’s restroom facilities remains rare – but that flying many aircraft with nonworking lavatories is completely legal.
These problems that are more dramatic — holes in the sides of aircraft, fuselage damage and smelly, non-functioning toilets — highlight the lax state of attention to detail that seems epidemic at airlines these days.
Memo to airline executives: Little things count. The state of the “little things” in your aircraft tell passengers more about your airline’s passenger service than an extra bag of peanuts or pretzels.
Now something to smile about —
Of course, sometimes there are simple explanations to malfunctioning airplane toilets as we find out in this amusing story from a couple of years ago. And, those of us who have flown on aircraft with stopped up toilets can appreciate the current state of the International Space Station where the only toilet in the Russian side of the station has been having problems.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
