A British man was forced to endure an 11-hour flight sitting on a seat soaked with someone else’s urine, according a report.
Andrew Wilkinson, 39, of London, boarded a British Airways plane in Heathrow to visit his parents in Cape Town, South Africa — and immediately noticed a wet patch on his seat, The Sun reported.
“It was about the size of two decks of cards laid side by side,” Wilkinson told the news outlet. “At first I thought it was water, but the smell was so distinct it could only have been urine.”
He said the stewardess agreed with his analysis and apologized — but simply brought him some wipes and asked him to clean it up himself, the outlet reported.
Wilkinson, who was in economy class, pleaded for a new seat.
“I said to the stewardess, ‘You are obviously going to move me into business, aren’t you? I can’t really sit here,’” Wilkinson said.
“She said she would see what she would do, but I wasn’t moved,” he continued. “And then she commented: ‘You are going to work me hard on this flight, aren’t you?’”
The attendant never changed Wilkinson’s seat, he said.
“So I was left to sit in a urine-soaked seat for over 11 hours when I paid £1,242 [about 1,600] for a return flight with BA.
“It was awful,” he told The Sun. “By the end of the flight, I could feel it seeping into my jeans.”
He said he got through the flight by placing a blanket over the seat — but was blown off when he requested a second one, according to the report
Wilkinson said he was offered 5,000 “Avios points” — which allow him to book reward flights.
“I just do not think that is a good enough compensation for sitting in someone else’s wee for over 11 hours,” he said.
In a statement issued to the outlet, a spokesperson for British Airways said: “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,” the statement continued. “We also perform frequent spot checks to make sure our cleaners are maintaining our high standards.”
