Or that! :D
I didn’t read the article. Just assumed there was some reason the plane had to go now and there wasn’t time for a proper cleaning.
Delta’s response to the situation can be summed up as sorry that’s someone else’s job, get in your seat or we’ll leave you behind.
My favorite part is how this guy is supposedly a top member, like million miles, diamond should get top treatment kind of spiel… and he even mentions that. Imagine if some lowly person had encountered this problem, oh he mentions that too. I just want to know where the videos are. The man is being asked to sit in shit and no one around him recorded?
how is the person sitting next to him isn’t complaining too?
I guess sitting in shit doesn’t bother some people.
It’s all situational.
Like rrmorton said, cover it up and offer some money to someone to take the seat and you’ll get takers.
I’ve slept overnight on concrete waiting in line for baseball playoff tickets, or at a Best Buy so I could buy my kids a Wii.
I get where you’re going. I slept in an airport because, well that’s just what happens. I’ve also slept in a car. I have never ever come close to being asked to sit or sleep in or near literal shit. That’s not roughing it. It’s completely unsanitary. The guy probably has a strong case.
I’d volunteer if it was relatively tolerable and it meant we could get the flight moving again. Any parent or pet owner knows, shit happens in the backseat sometimes. Not the kind of thing that should delay a flight.
If this happens during the flight, you deal with it. Once it’s at the airport, they need to clean it up. This cannot be the first time they’ve encountered bodily fluids.
Still haven’t read the article so I don’t know the details. But I’m assuming it’s been cleaned up as best as possible but there’s a stain remaining.
I’ve worked many service industry jobs. You know what you’re signing up for. It’s not fun, but you do your job.
I worked at Starbucks for a time and during a closing shift, downtown Burbank, CA, some crazy old dude came in and shat all over the floor of the bathroom. My assistant manager, a super nice guy named Joe, said, “Christien, I’m sorry. I can’t. I have a really weak stomach. Will you clean it up?”
So I put on a pair of rubber gloves and went to work. It sucked, but too bad.
I have zero patience for that, “It’s not my job,” attitude.
I can also do without the emotional support animals that shit up planes, but that’s a different issue. I’m a dog owner, but I respect that other people don’t like, or are afraid of, dogs. So I don’t bring my dog to soccer games or onto my kid’s school campus. Or into stores. One time I saw this idiot mom and her daughter with their new dog at my grocery store. They put it on the conveyor belt at the cash register! “Oh that’s cute,” said the cashier, nervously.
I love my dog so much. But I don’t want her walking on something that will convey produce.
-xtien
This is incorrect. Summary here. The flight crew said it wasn’t my job. It’s the ground crew. The ground crew didn’t clean it up, like at all. In addition, they mention that the animal was sick… like what kind of sick. Feces is not just gross, you can seriously get sick from it, especially as they wheel their little carts through it, serving food and drink, people touching everything. ugh, god. I am feeling nausea just thinking about it, and I spent almost a year cleaning up after a very old body failing cat. I certainly know the unfortunate affair of cleaning up after animal shit, repeatedly almost daily. I was very careful in how I handled it too.
Yeah the not my job piece here, beyond unbelievable. How little do you have to care about humanity to tell another human being to sit in animal shit when it is not a life or death situation.
The flight crew should have vetoed the flight. It’s as simple as that. How could a pilot or a crew leader possibly allow such a grotesque lapse? And of course Delta should have been delighted to fix the problem, wanting to avoid the inevitable terrible publicity. Total failure all around, from ground crew, flight crew, and management.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic :). They should have given EVERYONE on the flight a refund, and teleported a new first-class only plane to the gate and passed out free pajamas too!
You’re all saying “it’s not my job” is not an excuse. Uh, the passenger could have gotten some paper towels and cleaned it just as well, so he’s equally guilty of complaining “it’s not my job”.
If you encounter difficulty in this world, deal with it as best you can, rather than complain.
To be honest in nearly every example in this thread I find myself siding with the airline, including dog poo on the seat.
Hope you never get a doctor who isn’t feeling it that day…
Holy shit, I mean I guess someone will defend the indefensible, but this is crazy. What you’re talking about is a biohazard. Nobody has any idea what that dog (or person, I guess it’s not clear) is infested with. In no world is it the passenger’s responsibility to clean shit on his or her seat.
Do you want norovirus, because that’s how you get norovirus.
They should have deplaned everyone and brought in a cleanup crew. Those crews have special instructions for dealing with biological material. They don’t just go grab some paper towels out of the bathroom.
That the crew was focused entirely on getting the plane in the air reveals what must be some strange incentives. Delta can’t suggest that they are 100% focused on passenger safety when the truth appears to be that they’re actually 100% focused on on-time departure.
Edit: someone at Delta corporate knows wtf to do with a biohazard. The plane was taken out of service when it landed. It should have happened at the gate.
Yep. And not only that, they could get his some gnarly regulatory or employment laws by having employees do some of that. It’s not just cleaning up the visual solids here.
I am assuming the flight crews do know how to handle some of this because while they have ground crews on the ground, if something happens in there air, it’s just them. Again, this is not the first time bodily stuff showed up on a plane. These planes are often quite old as are their components.
There is no doubt, if everything this man says is true, Delta screwed up. Based on what he said, the lawsuit will cost them more than a quick cleaning of that plane.
Ok seriously let’s take a look at this.
After sitting in the mess, he said the crew gave him two paper towels and a bottle of gin to wipe it off him in the lavatory.
Wait, what? AFTER sitting in the mess? There’s poo splattered all over the place like a horror move scene and the guy sat in it before noticing it?
Horrible photo of poo!
Uh, the guy is wearing a white suit jacket and supposedly jumped into a swimming pool full of dog shit yet he posts a picture of maybe 3 grams of poo on the bottom of his shoe.
The airline did nothing! NOTHING!
They gave the guy some stuff to clean it up, apologized, and offered to put him on another flight. The man then apparently decided it was not severe enough to take them up on this offer, and STAYED ON THE FLIGHT. The airline then gave him a blanket to sit on.
Meehan told ABC Action News he was forced to remain seated and place a blanket over the mess.
Forced, really? Has this guy been ‘forced’ to do anything, in his entire life?
The airline crew said “it’s not my job!”
The crew who said this have defined safety-focused procedures for boarding a flight. They tried to help him and said they don’t have time or reason to stop the flight or do more.
I’m a diamond medallion and a million miler! This is a health code violation! Delta was made aware of the feces from the prior flight before my flight boarded and no one checked to see if it was clean, I was allowed to board unknowingly and sat in it covering myself in sickness and disease. No apology, no care, and was told to deal with it by Atlanta Red Coat. I’m shaking. I’m disgusted.
Dude, I just feel sorry for you, your family, and for America. Grow up.
It sounds like you don’t travel very often. Nobody but the biggest germophobes inspects the seat and its surroundings like that. You find your seat and plop down. You have to expect that there won’t be a massive diarrhea explosion.
It’s understaffing + work conditions. It’s like doctors calling nurses every time there is a bedpan to clean. The RN then calls the LPN, the LPN calls the staff below them, until finally the flunky gets the job. No one above the flunky wants that work.
Airline flight crews are expected to be all the roles from RN to flunky, but are only paid and trained to do one of them. They aren’t all purpose staff. So it’s not really the fault of the crew but the airline, when the company just stares, unblinking, at problems like this they haven’t planned for and have no contingency to deal with, hoping it just goes away, maybe throw a few hundred dollars at the problem, because full time on-site cabin maintenance staff at every airport would be expensive and time consuming.
I’ve travelled quite a bit, elite status for years on end, fewer now but around nine flights this year. In the past I’ve been able to compare my flight time to a stewardess and had her say "wow, how do you deal with so much travel?’.
It’s more just an attutude. They gave him 50,000 miles. Seems ok to me.
Edit to remove some snark.
Yes. There’s a reason normal people don’t inspect seats.
