Family forced to sit in vomit on United flight
No, that’s not some headline writer editorializing on the state of airplane food. Literally, these people had to go all butts in the barf seat because nobody from the crew bothered to clean things up between flights. Yes, I said between flights. So it’s not even a case where somebody had had enough of demanding passengers for the day and decided to let these ones stew in their own juices to teach ’em a lesson. I wouldn’t necessarily condone that by the way, but having interacted with a few less than pleasant human beings in my day I might understand it.
Scott Shirley had boarded a United Airlines flight with his wife and son when the trio noticed an unusual smell after placing their carry-on bags underneath their seats. After realizing their bags were damp, the family recognized the odor as vomit.
“She [Shirley’s wife] reached down and rubbed the ground and goes “the whole ground is wet,” and then she put it to her nose and goes “Oh my god! This is throw up,” Shirley explained to WUSA9.
“We’re extremely, extremely sorry about this. Why don’t you guys hang out over here while we take care of it? OH, and if you’d like anything to drink it’s on the house,” United should have said. But instead, they did the most United thing possible.
The family says they were given two choices: Either get on another plane or take these here garbage bags, wrap your stuff in them and let it marinate in stranger harf for a few hours. And no, we’re not changing your seats either, bitches.
They opted to stay on the plane because his wife had to be at work in the morning, though if that’s not a good enough reason to take a sick day I’m not sure what is.
United’s You’re Not Helping Department later issued a statement/apology.
“The situation Mr. Shirley described is certainly one that we wish no customer experiences, as our cleaners did not fully clean the seat area prior to departure. We offered them an alternate flight, but they decided to remain onboard. Our agents did the best they could in the short time they had to accommodate Mr. Shirley and keep the flight on time. We’ve to apologize to his family and offered a gesture of goodwill for future travel.”
Clearly these people have learned nothing from the great toilet paper famine of 2013. Sometimes it’s ok if the plane’s a little late.
Along with the apology, United gave each member of the family a $150 travel voucher. They would have also gotten coupons for the airport cafe, but that was deemed excessive as they had already gotten an extra meal.
