The bizarre behaviour that goes on in plane toilets
TOILETS are something all of us use every single day of our lives, without even putting any thought into it.
However, when people get on board planes, logic, experience and sadly basic hygiene go out the window, leaving us flight attendants to clean up the mess.
In this, my latest blog for Sun Online Travel, I'll reveal the bizarre, and often gross, ways in which passengers struggle with plane toilets, when they really shouldn't.
Firstly, the amount of people who don't know how to use toilet doors is staggering.
At least one person per flight will ask me to do it for them, even though the instructions, push or pull, will be written on the actual door itself.
It's the strangest thing, but people lose their critical faculties once they get on board the plane and just expect us to do everything for them.
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Our job is primarily to keep you safe, not open the doors to the toilets - you can do that yourself.
Secondly, I don't want to know what you're doing in there. As long as you're alone, and you're not smoking or taking drugs, I don't really care.
I've been asked some crazy questions from some people, including one person who asked me for permission to "do a number two".
It's honestly just baffling how weird people can be once we're in the air - all you need to do is go into the bathroom, do what you need to, and come back out, preferably in good time too.
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If it's on a bigger plane, for a long haul journey, then spending ages in the toilet is less of an issue, but on smaller routes, time is of the essence.
You don't want to be responsible for a big queue of people stretching down the aisle of the plane.
If you're someone who needs a bit longer to do your business, please do it before you fly, or hold on until you reach the airport.
Having people loitering in the aisle is bad anyway - and can be dangerous.
You don't want to create a risk in the air, just because you waited until you were mid-flight to go to the loo. It's just bad planning.
Also, it's a small aircraft - we'll all know what you're up to in there and we'd rather you kept that to yourself.
That said, some things cannot be kept "to yourself" as it were - and on bumpier flights, we may have a fair few people using the sick bags.
That's completely fine, that's exactly what they're there for, use them if you must. It's better that you do that than use the seat pockets, or just the floor, as has happened before.
However, please take these bags with you and dispose of them in a bin at the airport, or in the bins in the plane toilet if you get chance.
Don't flush them and definitely do not leave them in the seat pockets.
There's nothing more demoralising than tidying the plane after a flight and finding a used sick bag just tucked in the seat, waiting for us to clean it up.
It's gross and it's not something we should be expected to deal with.
Also, it leaves a mess and a smell for the next set of passengers sitting in and around your seat, which can make their return journey absolutely horrendous.
So just be thoughtful before you use either the toilets, or the sick bags, and show some consideration for us, your fellow passengers and anyone else who will have to use the plane.
By all means, use the toilets, but leave them as you'd expect the toilet in your house to be left.
Oh, and also please wear more than just a pair of socks or flip flops in the bathroom - that's definitely not just water on the floor.
I don't know how many times I've had to say this, but it never seems to get through.
On every single flight, there'll be at least one person just brazenly walking into the bathroom with their feet out, stepping in everyone else's "business". It makes me shudder every time I see it.
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Meanwhile, another flight attendant revealed the gross thing you should never do in a plane bathroom.
And this is what really happens when you flush an aeroplane toilet.
