[MPWTravels]

I flew on Air Canada Flight 087 from Toronto to Shanghai, China on 19 May. The flight was scheduled to be 14 hours. Throughout the flight, one by one, the toilets stopped working until we had 3 hours left in the flight and the final toilet stopped working. The flight attendants told me that the ground crew had forgotten to empty the toilet holding tanks in Toronto prior to leaving and that they were now full and that was why they were not working. They still had the contents in from the last long haul flight. They said it was not an issue with a clog in the system or the pipes freezing up. So, with 3 hours left to go, the pilot decided to make an unscheduled landing at Tokyo Narita airport to empty the toilets. It would have been tough to go 3 more hours without toilets--which I agree with.

This added 2.5 hours to our already long flight and caused many of us to miss connections or scheduled appointments all due to an avoidable error that Air Canada made.

In addition to this, 4 of the flight attendants decided to leave the plane in Tokyo because they were going to go over their allowable working hours. This caused further delay as we had to get customs officials out to the plane to let them off. The other 10+ flight attendants agreed to stay on and continue the flight, which was good otherwise I'm not sure what would have happened. (They had 2 redundant sets of pilots on board, so it wasn't an issue for them.)

While this was an unfortunate incident and a very annoying delay, it really made me question the safety at Air Canada. First, if they forgot to complete a ground check to verify that the toilets were empty, I wonder if they forgot any other more important safety checks? Second, did allowing the other 10+ flight attendants to stay on and work over their allowable hours cause any safety concerns?

Overall, I was very disappointed with Air Canada over this incident and in retrospect concerned with potential safety issues. I would definitely think twice before flying with them again.

[The_Judge]

First, the people checking the toilets are not the same people checking the engines. You were not in an un-safe situation in that respect,

Second, you should be very thankful that those 10 f/a's decided to stay on and work. They all go illegal at the same time, so the 4 that walked can't really be blamed but the 10 that worked allowed you to get to Shang Hai, otherwise you'd have most likely spent a fair amount of time in Tokyo waiting for a crew to be rounded up or being transferred to another airline.

[jimworcs]

I think you are stretching things to turn this into a safety issue in relation to the toilets. By the same logic, if the cleaners who clean the airplane on turn around forgot to empty the trash out of seatpocket, would you question the safety of the airline?

The question of staff is a bit more complex. I don't know the precise rules relating to legal staff hours in Canada, but the way it works in most juridictions there is an allowance for exceptional situations and delays. So for example, let's say there was a maximum 14 hour rule for cabin crew. Most jurisdictions may then have a "discretion" rule, which would allow the cabin crew to extend, say up to 18 hours. The discretion rule means that the airline could not compel them to do so, but they could choose to do so at their own discretion. This sounds like what may have happened here. 10 exercised their discretion to avoid inconveniencing the passengers and 4 did not. I would suggest that this is worthy of praise for the Air Canada staff rather than criticism.

Having said that.. as aircraft are increasingly capable of very long haul operations, they often carry two crews for flying and schedule in rest for the cabin crew, with a designated rest area. This may have been the case here. However, the pressure on shorter haul flight crew to maximise the use of the aircraft increasingly means pilots and cabin crew are working very long hours. In Europe for example, pilots are legally able to work significantly longer hours than truck, bus or train drivers. Although there are two of them, the workload pressures are enormous and fatigue poses an increasing risk. The Colgan accident may be the wake up call we need to address some of these issues.

[Gromit801]

Not so much a safety issue, but a health issue; and a violation of most health codes at that.

[JILL PLATTS]

Interesting to read your experience. We travelled from LHR to Halifax 7th Aug. Just after crossing Ireland the captain announced we had to return to Heathrow as all the toilets were not working. We had to change planes and it delayed take-off by 4 hours, with the result that we missed our connection to Montreal, had to fly to Toronto and then back to Montreal. We were delayed by just under 12 hours and I have to say the customer service was appalling. We were given incorrect information (lied to!) and were supposed to feel grateful to the crew who continued outside their hours to take the flight onto Toronto if they wanted gratitude they picked on the wrong person. If we wanted a snack on the flight we had to pay for it with the classic comment from the stewardess 'Even we don't get our meals free we have to pay.' Well that's like the majority of working people welcome to the real world! She may have been tired but the reality is someone obviously didn't check the toilets before the plane left Heathrow and that's a customer service issue, which as an employee of the company she has to deal with.
Has anyone also had trouble with pre-booking seats but never getting them? This happened on each section of the journey and needless to say they were never as good as the ones chosen.