United Airlines reportedly made a passenger fly in a vomit-covered seat, and flight crew tried to shame the passenger when he asked that they clean it up, Houston’s KPRC-TV reports.
Sam Trail says that he and his wife were on United Airlines flight 2057 from Vancouver to Houston on Sunday afternoon. As he and the other passengers were boarding, Sam says he noticed that his seat was covered in vomit, as was the back of the seat in front of him.
“The seat in front of me was covered with vomit. They kept boarding the people and so we couldn’t move. We basically had our luggage in our laps trying to avoid contact with the vomit.”
Trail says that when he brought the matter to the attention of the flight crew, they were more concerned with getting the aircraft off the ground on time, and purportedly tried to shame him for inconveniencing the other passengers if he insisted on sitting in a clean, vomit-free seat.
“I was told, ‘Oh, yeah, we can get a cleaning crew, but you’re going to be the reason this flight is delayed,’” he said.
Soon, a wad of paper towels was produced. Then, Trail says, a cleaning person showed up and cleaned up the mess as best they could, but Trail says that he and his wife were still made to sit in puke remnants for the entire flight.
It’s a busy month in hangar F300. We’re preparing 4 E175s for delivery to @united . The new E-Jets will be operated by @expressjet . #Ejets #E175 pic.twitter.com/yqxqyv9xbc
— John S. Slattery (@Johnslattery100) August 20, 2019
In a statement, United Airlines said that Trail’s experience is not what the airline strives for.
“We’re disappointed that this aircraft did not meet our standards for cleanliness. Once the issue was brought to our crew’s attention, cabin cleaners were called on board to clean the seat prior to departure,” the statement said.
This is not the first time a passenger has complained of having to sit in vomit on a flight. As previously reported by The Inquisitr , back in April a Frontier Airlines passenger complained about having to sit in vomit from a previous passenger, and the situation went much worse for her than it did for Sam Trail.
Specifically, Rosetta Swinney says that when she complained about vomit in her seat, the flight attendant told her it was not their problem. Swinney claims that she was offered a different seat, but for reasons that aren’t clear, wound up back in the original, vomit-befouled seat. She then complained again and was escorted off the plane and arrested.