In case you missed this story, it's the case of British Airways - taking the pee by not taking the pee! It's a rather disgusting tale of how one passenger had to endure an 11 hour flight sitting in a seat soaked with somebody else's pee.
Andrew Wilkinson, paid more than £1,200 for a seat on a flight to South Africa with the British carrier, only to find when he boarded the busy flight, his seat had a damp patch. At first he thought it was just water, but upon closer inspection, the stench was unmistakable - it was urine.
He recalled: “I got to my seat and saw that there was a wet patch. It was about the size of two decks of cards laid side by side.
“At first I thought it was water but the smell was so distinct it could only have been urine.
“I told the stewardess and she smelt it and agreed it was wee."
“She said ‘sorry about that’. Then she went to the toilet and brought me seat wipes and told me to clean it up myself.”
Of course no-one wants to sit in a puddle of someone else's pee, so naturally Mr Wilkinson asked to be moved “I said to the stewardess: ‘You are obviously going to move me into business, aren’t you? I can’t really sit here" an understandable reaction. However the crew refused to move him, or anyone else to a half empty business class and forced him to sit in the seat. They did give him a blanket, but even that was a trial for the crew, who according to Mr Wilkinson couldn't have cared less and even complained to the him ‘You are going to work me hard on this flight, aren’t you?’
The outrageous unhelpful attitude of the BA staff seems incredible, and justifiably the passenger complained after arrival in the UK because, “It was awful. By the end of the flight, I could feel it seeping into my jeans.”
A spokesperson for BA said: “We were very concerned to hear about this and have been in touch with our customer to apologise and make amends.
“The cleanliness of our aircraft is of the utmost importance to us and our planes are cleaned thoroughly after every flight. We also perform frequent spot checks to make sure our cleaners are maintaining our high standards.” The derisory compensation BA have offered is 5000 avios points, not enough to even get across the channel. This story appeared in The Sun and some other publications
We asked, was it unreasonable for mr Wilkinson to ask for an upgrade when confronted with the pee stained seat?
"No bloody way" was the unequivocal reply from Daniel a plane spotter at Gatwick Airport.
"What an outrageous way for an airline to behave." Kelly, an admin assistant from Crawley.
"He should have got an upgrade for sure, or swapped places with one of the crew on a dry jump seat" Richard, an airline worker (Not BA) from Redhill
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