British Airways Passenger Claims He Had To Sit In Urine-Soaked Seat For 11 Hours

There are uncomfortable flying situations, and then there’s sitting in a urine-soaked seat for 11 hours.

A British Airways passenger who paid more than $1,500 for a flight from London to Cape Town, South Africa tells The Daily Mirror that he spotted a wet patch on his seat upon boarding. Initially, he assumed it was an innocent water stain, but the smell was so distinct it could only have been urine,” he recalls.

He claims he told a flight attendant, who smelled the wet patch, agreed that “it was wee,” and apologized. After that, however, he said she brought him some wet wipes and told him to clean it up himself.

When he asked to be moved from his economy seat to business class he says the flight attendant told him she’d see what she could do — but he remained stuck in his seat.

“So I was left to sit in a urine-soaked seat for over 11 hours,” he said. “It was awful. By the end of the flight, I could feel it seeping into my jeans.”

He says that when he complained to the airline about the urine-soaked seat, they offered him 5,000 frequent flyer points, and eventually added a flight voucher worth about $700 giving him a flight voucher worth about $560, or a free upgrade on his next flight to Cape Town.

“I just do not think that is a good enough compensation for sitting in someone else’s wee for over 11 hours,” he noted.

In a statement, British Airways said it was “very concerned” over the incident, and that the company has been in touch with the passenger to apologize and “make amends.”

“The cleanliness of our aircraft is of the utmost importance to us and our planes are cleaned thoroughly after every flight,” the airline said. “We also perform frequent spot checks to make sure our cleaners are maintaining our high standards.”

More gross nightmares

Unfortunately, we’ve heard similarly gross tales in the past: In Feb. 2016, an American Airlines passenger said his first-class seat was soaked with urine.

And back in 2015, United Airlines had to apologize to a couple who found a full barf back in a seat-back pocket.