Unscheduled Toilet Stop

Hat tip to Wagga for this find:
THE run of bad luck afflicting Qantas took a graphic turn last night when a fully loaded 767 flying from Sydney to Perth was forced to stage an unplanned landing in Adelaide so its toilets could be emptied.

Flight staff on QF571 told passengers that Sydney ground staff had forgotten to empty the toilets on the 767-300, which originated in Honolulu.

By the time the flight had been in the air for an hour, three of the toilets had ceased to function.

"They told us that under any reasonable calculation, the rest of them would go pretty quickly," one businessman told the Herald during the plane's cleaning stop in Adelaide.

"Four out of seven toilets were not flushing so for the comfort of our passengers we diverted to Adelaide," a Qantas spokeswoman said.

Passengers were "exasperated", the businessman said, but otherwise resigned to the delay.

"All this discussion of toilets triggered an urgent need to go in just about everyone," he said.

"We did ask for more red wine to be brought on board, but it was felt not to be a priority."

The unscheduled Qantas toilet stop comes only hours after the national carrier was forced to delay Sydney-bound QF2 from London for more than 15 hours after a problem with its rudder.

Continued here.

Luxury Airplane Toilet

Gawker:
Richard Quest, the most British man currently allowed on US television (he's a regular contributor to CNN and CNN International) has laid pretty low since he was arrested in Central Park with meth, sex toys, and rope.

Inflight Urinal Money-Maker

Urinal by ~whooptishit

Can it be that urinals might soon be taking off on major long haul flights?

In a recent article for the online version of the German news magazine Der Spiegel, Andrew Curry writes about a German company that's been busy designing a prototype pissoir for the new Airbus A380. The company, Dasell, hopes that if its concept is a hit, other airlines might start outfitting their long haul planes with them.

There seems to be interest. Dasell unveiled its urinal design at an airline industry expo in Hamburg, Germany, in April and many took notice. The reason? Like seemingly everything else these days in the industry, the cripling cost of fuel could make installing urinals on aircraft a way for carriers to earn a little extra money.

Dasell says their urinal lavatories take up less space -- the equivalent of four seats -- than traditional unisex lavatories. Given that most long haul aircraft have nearly 10 toilets, replacing some of them with the more compact urinals could result in getting a few more paying customers in seats.

It's certainly a more intriguing money-making idea than simply charging for a second piece of checked baggage. Of course, one wonders why it's taken the industry so long to conclude that urinals might be a good thing, both for bottom lines and -- given, as Curry puts it, the inconsistent aim of many men, especially in turbulance -- bottoms in general.

For cash-strapped airlines, inflight urinals could be a money-maker
Hat tip to Wagga!

Airplane "Twalett"

Airplane "Twalett" by ~LittleDende
Artist's Comments
I have a fascination with toilets. This one was taken in the airplane on the way to Japan.

Apparently not everyone shares that interest:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour jetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation."

Man says JetBlue made him sit on toilet