Travel fun

Letters of complaint

Seat 29EMore from Snopes (Urban Legends Reference Pages):

This funny entry describes the experience of a passenger in seat 29e on a Continental Airlines flight. This seat was extremely close to the toilets and the passenger describes in great detail how disgusted he was by the smells etc.

For full effect - see the PDF of the original letter.

Letter to United

I’ve just finished reading a post over at a little pregnant, one of my favourite blogs. In the same vein as the letter about Seat 29E, blogger Julie writes to the head of United Airlines to discuss her experience of a recent flight on a 757, which has no change tables on board.

When asked where someone was supposed to change a baby if the need arose, the flight attendant suggested either changing the baby on a seat or on the floor of the galley. Now, given the looks from my fellow passengers during our recent vomit incident - I don’t think people in the surrounding seats would be all that happy with a stinky nappy/diaper change. And as for changing a baby in a galley - well, let’s just hope it’s not officially condoned.

Not that aircraft change tables (if, indeed they can be called that) are so great. In all of the aircraft that I have flown on the facilities are basic and inadquate. It’s as if the aircraft designers ran out of money and grabbed a flat piece of board and a couple of hinges with a latch and “presto!” there’s a “change table”. Airlines may rationalise that babies may be unlikely to need nappy changes on short haul flights (because, you know, babies are so predictable and all) but even the latest jumbos still have the same flimsy drop down shelves. And so changing a baby on a plane without needing to change your own clothes or drop your baby on the festy toilet floor is a skill, if not an artform.

I hope that the CEO of United (and any other airline flying 757s plus the designers of the new Airbus) gets to see the letter, either in the mail or by stumbling across it on the web. He might even like to get one of these shirts:

© 2008 Flying with Baby.