Many years ago, I wrote a story about my “golden shower” on Emirates…as a joke. Little did I think then that Emirates would actually allow a passenger to urinate repeatedly in the business class cabin. But a business class passenger reports that a man stumbled over to her seat and attempted to urinate on her…after already soiling his own seat. The worst part? He was allowed simply to walk off the jet.
Tinkling Seatmate Sends Fears Through Emirates Business Class Cabin – Woman Sits Up In Fear Man Will Urinate On Her
The harrowing incident occurred onboard an Emirates Airbus A380 traveling from Dubai (DXB) to Sydney (SYD). Here’s what happened, as told by the passenger in a letter to The Telegraph (UK):
I decided to spend 108,000 miles to upgrade us to business for the long 13 hour leg from Dubai to Sydney.
Some hours into the flight we became aware of a very rowdy group in the bar area.
One of the men drunkenly approached my seat and wanted to sit down, convinced it was his. His friend led him away, but then around an hour or so later, the same thing happened once more.
This time one the one of the stewards removed him, as my husband had already alerted them to the situation.
But still, it happened a third time, and this time as he approached me he undid his trousers and it looked like he was going to urinate at my seat.
My husband had to push him away. Apparently this man had already urinated on his own seat.
This man totally ruined our business class journey and I got absolutely no sleep whatsoever because I was terrified that if I shut my eyes he would come back and relieve himself on me.
I’d imagine that if she and her husband sat awake, others did too…and there must have been some commotion onboard.
If a drunk man approached me not once, not twice, but three times and undid his trousers the third time (after already tinkling on his own seat), I’d stand vigilant as well. If this woman is not exaggerating, she had ample grounds not to sleep and has eery right to be upset at Emirates for not taking the matter seriously.
An Insulting Response From Emirates
The woman reached out to Emirates, heard nothing, reached out again, and received 20,000 Skywards miles for her trouble. An insult considering the upgrade cost 108,000 miles each and she was (reasonably) too afraid to sleep. She asked for a full refund of the upgrade cost, which I think is more than reasonable, but was rebuffed.
She eventually reached out to various UK media outlets over the incident and The Telegraph was able to secure her 60,000 Skywards miles, which still seems on the very low side to me considering what she went through.
Emirates also told The Telegraph:
We are disappointed to hear Mrs. S’s complaint. Emirates takes the safety of its passengers very seriously and our customer affairs team are in direct contact with her to resolve the matter.
We covered another similar story recently on Air India and it was only when Air India was shamed by the media that it finally aided in the prosecution of the passenger. At the very least, this passenger should be banned and every business class passenger he terrorized should be handsomely compensated. It’s the very least Emirates should do.
> Read More: Drunk Seatmate Urinates On Woman, Flight Attendants Do Nothing
> Read More: Moron Who Urinated On Air India Passenger Is Arrested After Fleeing Police, Fired By Wells Fargo
CONCLUSION
A drunk passenger…had to get drunk. He was reportedly binging in the onboard bar, which if true, makes Emirates culpable…not just the man for his lack of self-control. Flight attendants are trained to recognize signs of intoxication and instructed to cut off passengers when they appear inebriated. That did not appear to occur here.
Sure, a diversion may not have been appropriate, but how about an arrest upon arrival? It is absurd that this drunkard was apparently allowed to walk off the plane without being detained.
(H/T: View From The Wing)
Wondering if Emirates knows the guy and wants to protect him. It is not uncommon that these are spoiled rich people and Emirates may just want to let it go to protect their business with the person/company/family. This is one of those situations you really don’t know how to react. The husband sees a guy unzipping his pants in front of his wife for the 3rd time? What was he supposed to do???
Valid point about the flight crew protecting some bigwig but it seems less likely that such a bigwig would be flying business instead of first. I’m a bit surprised that the husband didn’t swap seats with the wife. Regardless, Emirates made a huge mistake by not offering hefty compensation to the woman as an absolute minimum. Having the idiot banned and arrested would just have been reasonable and ziptying him to his urine seat would have been appropriate as well.
The answer is simple. Ban alcohol on all flights. If you need a drink that badly, just wait til you land. People are obsessed with the consumption of alcohol.
The problem with that is that it would encourage people to smuggle on alcohol and perhaps consume it in greater quantities than the regulated portion sizes served by FAs.
Banning things is a piss poor approach to managing a small percentage of people’s inability to act like adults.
We can’t punish someone wanting a celebratory drink for the outrageous behavior of a few. Whilst liquor is served in a flight, it is not the full moon party in Thailand. We expect as passengers a level of decorum and protection which this couple did not receive
I mean, should this even be a conversation? This abhorrent behavior is unacceptable in any part of the globe, in spite of any intrinsic misogyny common to any given culture. The purser should be dismissed without recourse for not controlling the situation immediately. Emirates is attempting to trivialize the situation so ad to reduce blowback. Obviously an ill thought strategy that has failed. Shame on them.
I am terrified of a certain group of Americans who seem to cause most problems onboard.
Should we ban those people, too?
It’s not only business class that has disturbed flights. I travelled in First class from Singapore to Glasgow via Dubai having used my airmiles to upgrade. There were 3 adults in the cabin and 1 baby which screamed all the way to Dubai. The purser apologised to me for the disturbance and said that infants should not be in the First class cabin but the check in staff had authorised this. I was given 55000 miles as compensation but that did not make up for a perfectly horrendous flight. This made me unwilling to travel with Emirates again.