British Airways Asks Staff to Stop Urinating in the Cargo Holds

We’ve seen reports of passengers not quite finding the lavatory on planes, whether Air India or Vietnam Airlines or on JetBlue or American Airlines. When that happens there’s not much you can do.

It’s usually the passengers, though, not the crew — unless, that is, you’re talking about British Airways baggage handlers.

Mental note: don’t check anything into the cargo hold on British Airways.

A BA source said: “Basically the guys were taking a leak in the hold when they were caught short.

“You can understand it.

“They are tucked away in the holds of these massive planes and they need to go.

“It can be a real trek back to the toilet facilities at the staff centre and when you have to go you have to go.

“Eventually it emerged urine is quite corrosive and there was some issues with some of the Boeing 747s.

Baggage handlers are being told that they really do need to walk back to the offices to use the restroom.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. The good news is the British Airways ramp staff was not ordered to stop pooping in checked passenger baggage stored in the cargo hold.

  2. I worked cargo, British Airways’ (BOAC) VC-10 flights LHR-BOS-LHR back in the early 1970’s. The cargo pits and cargo netting smelled like urine way back then. Those aircraft flew to almost every Continent, it was a true multi-national ‘outhouse’ below the passenger cabin. It is oddly amusing to me to see it is still an issue forty-five years later.

  3. They are being “asked?” Seriously? What is wrong with people? You’re caught doing it; you are fired. That’s all there is to it.

    Although you’re right about passengers. Years ago, some idiot guy never locked the bathroom door on plane and of course I saw “vacant’ and opened it mid stream. Did this idiot think he was at home?

  4. @Nick~ are you suggesting ‘moslems’ (sic) all have bladder issues, or are you simply a loud-mouth bigot?

  5. I was in the Navy and stationed in Naval Air Facility Mildenhall England 1973-76 and we had an aircraft a C131 Convair that had been flown from Iceland into Mildenhall with a quite heavy tail. After the aircraft was in our hander there was a small fluid leakage and the aircrewman poked the bottom of the plane and he took a approximately 300 gallon bath of urine. There is a urine tube exiting that aircraft, it had corroded and was leaking into the belly of that aircraft. The Aircrafts belly had to be reskinned..

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