Out of roughly 1200 flights, I’ve had relatively very few, albeit notable, issues. There was the emergency landing in Seattle, the “we didn’t fill ‘er up enough” in Bali, and the 17-hour delay in Macao. But a flight without lavatory access? That’s quite the welcome mat from Alaska Airlines.
Slight Detour
On that note, I’ve flown with Alaska Airlines just four times, with all of those happening in the past year. As I’m earning miles with them for the first time ever, I’m finding their flight search matrix ridiculous — AS, you’re a oneworld member, and you don’t show results for cash flights to Mexico City or Bogotá? — but their mileage chart works slightly better.
Back to the Main Event
Albeit a short hop (on paper), the flight that had no lavatory access was AS3325, LAX-SFO. Apparently, there were announcements at the gate that no water was available, and therefore no lavatories were to be used. I was in the AS LAX lounge, so I wasn’t privy to this (not the airline’s fault). Thus, the shock came when I took my seat, and the captain relayed this gate-side message.
Before some of you comment that AS3325 was operated by SkyWest, it nevertheless functioned as an Alaska Airlines proxy, along with an Alaska Airlines flight number. One can’t even book a “SkyWest” ticket on the SkyWest website.
There were a couple of passengers who angled to use the lavatories, but each time the FA admonished them, noting that plenty of announcements were made. Heaven forfend a delay, or long taxi ride to the runway….
Have you ever been on a flight where no lavatory access was the rule?
This happened to me once on a US Airways ERJ145 flight from PIT – BDL (I think in 2007, I think operated by Trans States). They let us know the lav was inop before boarding and could defer the maintenance on it as opposed to delaying the flight, it was a short flight as yours was so it shouldn’t be a big deal. I do think they should be required to let everyone know who was boarding to use the facilities before they got on, and sounds like they didn’t let you know.
I appreciate your comment, Albert.
Although I wasn’t at the gate, I believe they did let passengers know that they were inoperable.
However, there was no signage at the gate mentioning the same (i.e. for folks like me who weren’t around
due to being indisposed/eating elsewhere/lounge/etc.)
Nevertheless, a superficially short hop could easily get delayed.