Stinking plane
 

My husband and I travelled from Atlanta to SFO in Delta flight 047 on August 30th , 2009. This is the most inhuman, disgusting experience ever. I will never fly Delta again. On boarding the plane, the toilets were stinking. We told the airhostess about this and she said she couldnot nothing about it. In face she used the same stinking toilets to wash utensils and coffee cannisters. We had to endure this stinking plane for 4 hours and 38 minutes. This was after a 12 hour flight from Athens, greece to atlanta which was congested and cramped itself. Delta has the oldest fleet of planes with disgusting interiors. In face the planes are unfit for humans to travel in my opinion.

That's the Delta experience.. you simply have to choose an alternative carrier.. they don't act on or listen to complaints.

Odd that this happened in ATL. Usually the lavatories are serviced at the hub. I looked up flight 47 ATL-SFO on 30 Aug. Your flight departed 85 minutes late. Was the aircraft delayed from it's previous city? Perhaps if they were in a rush to get the plane back in the air the lavs may not have received full servicing? Or perhaps was the delay because they were aware of a problem with the lavs and were trying to fix it? It could be a number of things but traveling in a flying cesspool is just awful. My only experience was on a regional jet and the lav smelled like a herd of circus elephants had relieved themselves in it. On second thought, I've been to the circus and this was way worse!

I would think that a well written letter would result in some sort of compensation. It would probably be in the form of a travel voucher for use on a future trip. You could always use that voucher for Northwest operated flights on Delta.com however Northwest's fleet is older than Deltas!

I smell a rat with this story. PHX - did you happen to note the type of aircraft? It's a 767-300. The 767 does not have an individual tank under each toilet. It has a vacuum system, so one tank in the back of the aircraft, that is not under any toilet. Also there is a valve that closes when the toilet is done being flushed. So, unless each toilet had a load of waste in each one that was not flushed down, you cannot smell the contents of the tank.

So your theory is that people are just making up smelly toilets? What would be the motive for the grand toilet conspiracy?

Actually, I checked into this. DL047 operates as a single flight number from Moscow (SVO) via ATL then onward to SFO. In ATL there is a change in aircraft from the 767-300 SVO-ATL to a 757-200 ATL-SFO. You can check this for yourself at FlightAware.com. The only smelly rat here is the one that died in the lav! :p

WTF? That line alone casts doubt on your post. Washing things in the toilets? Or perhaps you mean in the lavatory sinks?

Gromit... if you have to split hairs to critique a posting then is it really worth the effort?

I notice you have not responded to the bigotry post elsewhere... cat got your tongue?

Perhaps the OP saw the FA empty the coffee pot into the sink in the lavatory? There would be no need to "wash utensils" as that is taken care of when the caeing carts are off-loaded at the end of the flight. I'm pretty sure this is a legit complaint. We'll see if the OP receives any compensation as I'm sure s/he won't be the only one complaining to DL if the odor was indeed that bad.

And this too shows it a 767 ATL-SFO, not a 757.

Scroll down and click on "more past flights." It breaks it out by segment. You'll see the ATL-SFO segment on 8/30 was a B752.

Ah, and equipment change. It still wouldn't have stunk up the whole plane.

Big difference between the sink and the toilet.

As far as your other remark, you are what you are, and not worth responding to any longer.

Gromit,
The use of the word "toilet" does not literally mean the actual toilet bowl. In Europe it would be common to say I just went to the toilets to wash my hands, change the babies nappy, etc. It is no different to American's who say they have been to the bathroom. We don't conclude that you just ****** in the bath. It is ridiculous and splitting hairs.

I appreciate your acknowledment that you lost the debate on quality standards on US airlines and have no response... a bit of humble pie never did anyone any harm.

On that note- to the original poster - they don't actually wash anything on board. It's not unusual for the flight crew to dump the left over coffee into the sink at the end of the flight. They don't rinse them out in there. When the plane lands, catering will come and change out the coffee pots, among other things. The catering company handles the actual cleaning of this stuff, not the flight crew.

Already covered:

Sorry for the typo. I meant to say "catering." I've since replaced the batteries in my wireless keyboard. :D