Man Forced to Sit in Someone Else’s Pee on 11-hour Flight

Man Forced to Sit in Someone Else’s Pee on 11-hour Flight
British Airways aircraft at Heathrow Airport in London, England. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
Colin Fredericson
8/23/2017
Updated:
8/23/2017

A man who was given an airplane seat soaked with urine was forced to stay there for the entire 11-hour flight, according to reports.

Andrew Wilkinson boarded a British Airways flight at Heathrow Airport in London on Aug. 4 and had to sit in pee until he arrived in Cape Town, South Africa.

Wilkinson noticed after boarding that his seat had a wet patch “the size of two decks of cards laid side by side,” he told The Mirror. He alerted the flight attendant, who, upon inspection, confirmed it was urine. She then left and returned with toilet seat wipes from the bathroom, and told him to clean it up. The flight attendant didn’t offer to have staff take care of the issue or to move his seat. 

“It was awful. By the end of the flight, I could feel it seeping into my jeans,” Wilkinson told the Mirror. He tried to cover his seat with a blanket, but that wasn’t enough to stop the pee from seeping through. He requested another blanket, but it never came. 

The London-based, 39-year-old IT consultant endured sitting in someone else’s pee so he could help his parents move to a new house in Cape Town. He tried to get another seat, but to no avail.

“I said to the stewardess: ‘You are obviously going to move me into business, aren’t you? I can’t really sit here,’” Wilkinson told the Mirror.

Although economy class was full, he says that airplane staff could have adjusted seating to move him, but the stewardess didn’t oblige.

“She said she would see what she would do but I wasn’t moved,” he said. “And then she commented: ‘You are going to work me hard on this flight, aren’t you?’

“So I was left to sit in a urine-soaked seat for over 11 hours when I paid £1,242 for a return flight with BA,” he added.

After the ordeal was over he alerted British Airways headquarters, who offered him 5,000 frequent flyer points—enough for a one way trip to Paris, according to the Mirror.

The airline responded to the incident, when contacted by Inc. magazine:

“We were very concerned to hear about this and have been in touch with our customer to apologize 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.”

From NTD.tv

Colin is a New York-based reporter. He covers Entertainment, U.S., and international news. Besides writing for online news outlets he has worked in online marketing and advertising, done voiceover work, and has a background in sound engineering and filmmaking. His foreign language skills include Spanish and Chinese.
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