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Lavs: Measure of a Good Airline
The Travel Critic · April 27, 1998

What's the secret to a good flight? It's not, as you might suspect, gourmet food or free drinks, or impeccable service. It's the bathrooms.

Yep, toilets are the key to a pleasant trip.

Remember the German passenger who was kicked off a flight a few years ago for making a bomb threat? Turns out he urgently needed to use the lavatory-but wasn't allowed to because the plane hadn't yet reached its cruising altitude. When he warned the flight attendant that he was about to burst, something got lost in the translation. Authorities jailed the man after the plane returned to Miami.

Restroom troubles don't usually lead to prison time nor precipitate a diplomatic crisis. More often than not, they're just reminders of how much we hate to fly. One reader of this column recently sent me a note about a SunJet charter that flew sans WC.

"All three restrooms were not working, causing a lot of discomfort and [a] very pathetic situation," complained Rameshkumar Narayanasamyraju. "In fact, the flight started from Long Beach, Calif., and I was told by other passengers that the restrooms [were] not working right from California."

SunJet spokesman Hank Ernest said broken bathrooms are "a common problem, not just for our charter service, but for other airlines," and added, "it's something we will try to correct."

Airlines looking for an edge in their passenger service department sometimes start by giving the lavatories a once-over. In its early days, Kiwi International Airlines put real flowers in its bathrooms and added nicer soaps and softer tissues than the industrial-strength stuff used by the major airlines.

Is a carrier's commitment to passengers directly proportionate to the condition of its restrooms? Although there are no formal surveys on the subject, I would suggest that the answer is "yes."

One WC war story in particular comes to mind. It happened on a Tarom charter from New York to Vienna in the early 1980s. Tarom, for those of you who don't fly outside the States, is Romania's national carrier. It operated Soviet-built aircraft with four engines attached near the tail of the plane.

I was one of the unlucky souls trapped in the last seat of this Cold War-era leviathan, wedged between a pair of droning jets and the bathroom. The only working bathroom on the whole plane. For about nine hours I was kept awake by a long line of passengers waiting for their turn.

I vividly recall two things about that trip: the flight attendants who acted indifferently to our plight and the acrid smell of deodorizer emanating from the restroom, punctuated by puffs of unfiltered cigarette smoke.

On your next flight, pay close attention to the bathrooms because they tell a lot about how your carrier does business. Are the floors covered with water? Is there enough toilet paper and tissue? Is the overall appearance sanitary? If the answers aren't satisfactory, maybe it's time to find a new airline.

So how can you avoid a restroom crisis on your next flight?

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.