AirTran customer left to stew in someone else's piss

Apparently, some of the flight crew on AirTran think that when you pay for a seat, you should be thankful for getting a seat, regardless of the state it's in:

A Winchendon woman said an airline did not help her after she sat in a urine-soaked seat on a West Palm Beach, Fla., to Boston flight on Sunday night.

"I was sitting maybe 30 seconds to minute and realized that my pants were soaked," Jennifer Castellano said.
[...]
"A flight attendant told me that on the previous flight a man had urinated on himself in that particular seat. And I said, 'I'm not sitting on a three hours flight soaked in someone else's urine. That is absolutely disgusting,'" Castellano said.

US Airways staff "not proud" of their airline

US Airways encourages its staff to ask open, honest questions of its senior management. It sounds like about the only thing they get right:

“Who thought it would be a good idea to have pink Pepto-Bismol ads on tray tables talking about diarrhea?” a worker wrote in July. The Pepto ads were replaced in August.

Another employee wondered in October 2006: “Why can we not get better quality snack items for our coach customers? One customer recently compared the generic pretzel nubs we serve to the fish food you buy in a .25 gumball machine at any zoo or park.”

Actually, fish food would appear to be too costly. “We’ve worked with our purchasing team,” management explained, “to bring in many companies to compete on our main cabin tidbit item (pretzels). To date, no one has been able to match our current cost, about 3 cents per package.”

Now, we know that times are tight for airlines - but it's telling that they're only judging the quality of the customer's experience on the basis of how little they can spend on it.

Heathrow Terminal 5: Selling sofas while you miss your plane

Ominous reports from Terminal 5 at Heathrow, which is apparently crammed with shops, but nothing you could possibly actually need when flying:

“I want to be the first airport to sell a sofa,” said [Nick] Ziebland, ["retail strategy director" of BAA] dodging shopfitters at the Paul Smith store, which is waiting for doors from a French chateau.

There are practical shops alongside the luxury brands, but fewer than passengers might expect. “We’re not going to have a Primark . . . not everyday socks and underwear,” said Mr Ziebland

Who really wants to buy a sofa when waiting for a plane? Perhaps this is just a sign that BAA are expecting to port to T5 the long delays and discomfort which has made Heathrow a symbol of shame at the nation's gateway: you'll wait so long, you'll need to buy your own sofa to get comfortable.

It certainly seems so, to judge by the FT:

Even with the shops shut, trials have shown some passengers missing their flight; this is not representative and will be fixed, stresses BAA.

There is also going to be no capacity increase from the gleaming Richard Rogers-designed Terminal 5: as soon as it opens, other areas will be closed for much-needed refurbishment.

Maybe you should think about a one-seater rather than a sofa, to make sure there's room for you.

United Airlines: More cash than they know what to do with

It's not so long ago that United Airlines were in bankruptcy, accepting US taxpayers' cash to cope in the turbulent times after September 11th 2001.

Now, though, they've got so much money, they're talking about giving half a billion to shareholders.

Legally, they might not have to share this cash with American taxpayers or those who held debt in the company before it went into protective bankruptcy... but isn't there a moral case? If it's really got half a billion quid it doesn't know what to do with, after the American nation bailed them out, maybe it should think about a sizeable charitable donation?