BA apologises to passenger forced to sit in ‘urine-soaked seat’
British Airways has apologised to a businessman who boarded a flight to South Africa to find his seat was soaked in urine.
IT consultant Andrew Wilkinson, 39, said a stewardess then gave him some wet wipes to clean the seat.
He told the Mail on Sunday: "I called the stewardess who agreed the dampness was urine.
"She went to the toilet and came back with some wipes and expected me to clean up the mess myself.
"I told her: ‘ I can’t sit here’ but she just laughed. Her response was: ‘I can see you are going to work me really hard on this flight, aren’t you?’
"In the end, I put a plastic bag over the seat and covered it with a blanket."
Mr Wilkinson had paid £1,242 for a round-trip flight to visit his parents in July.
He later tweeted his experience and BA first offered him 5,000 Avios points, then increased the offer to a £435 flight voucher or upgrade on his next flight.
But he said he just wants a proper apology.
BA said it had been unable to re-seat Mr Wilkinson as the flight was full.
The airline said: "We were very concerned to hear about this and have been in touch with our customer to apologise 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."’‹
The union Unite said this was another example of BA’s ‘service being hit’ by cost cuts.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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