The Ultimate Airline Insult: Pay to Pee!

Yesterday, in writing about Spirit Air’s plan to charge a fee for carry-on bags, I concluded by joking that pay toilets were next. Ha-ha. But then I got an email from SmarterTravel alerting me that Ryanair, the king of cheapo European carriers, was already working on exactly that. The carrier actually plans to install pay toilets on its short-haul flights. Apparently Ryanair believes that you should be able to hold it in for hour, and if you can’t—better have a €1 coin handy.

For those of you not familiar with Ryanair, it is a feisty competitor that has torn the once highly-regulated intra-European air travel market to shreds by offering flights for ridiculously low prices. The tradeoff is that Ryanair ceo Michael O’Leary feels free to offer passengers as much abuse as he deems necessary to make a profit. Needless to say he does not give a, um, whit about passenger comfort if he gets you where you’re going for next to nothing.

That gets us to pay toilets. Since Ryanair is mostly short-haul, O’Leary figures all but the most urgent natural functions can be discouraged, which conceivably allows Ryanair to yank out a toilet or two and install seats that generate revenue. Whatever toilet seats do remain will generate revenue, too. That makes economic sense, but I’m just wondering when some beer-swelled English yobs flying to a football match or on holiday will stage a rather indelicate protest.

I will clearly have to refrain from making the what-will-they-charge-for next joke, since the airlines are getting way beyond parody.

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womanofsomearea

I don’t mind the pay 2 pee so much. It might mean the bathrooms look less like every single person who used them beforehand had lost his or her sense of direction and aim. I bet it saves RA on cleaning too. That’s at least a charge that might make the flight experience less hideous, which paying for checked luggage does not.
http://stephenpoo.wordpress.com stephenpoo

Deregulation in so many fields have made it very tough to survive in business. Pinching pennies in a airline means shaving costs on personel,equiptment and maintenace too. The trucking industry where I have been is the same way. All have choices to make with a shrinking budget over what gets taken care of fixed now and what will have to wait. How safe is that you might ask? And do all these rather cheap services lead us to believe we are doing better in our earnings then we really are? This is the decade when we find out otherwise.
deconstructiva

Thanks, Bill. Now we know the airlines don’t care about passengers. They’re only looking out for #1.
http://extr0pian.wordpress.com extr0pian

Wow, that’s about as retarded as what I’m about to say… “Guess I’ll just pee in my seat, idiots.”
oceangebhardt

@extr0pian I think it might take some brave (or crazy) soul to do just that in order to reverse this.
chrisinastrangeland

I hope they like it when people urinate in the galley. Because at least one person is going to do it each flight.
http://laalexovich.wordpress.com laalexovich

The concept of pay to pee was pretty standard when I visited Prague in 2007. The have an “attendant” sitting outside the bathroom, and you have to pay her to go in. Was I getting taken because I was a tourist? Probably. But the concept was already there, at least in some parts of Europe, on the ground. It was only a matter of time before someone brought it to the air. It might seems like a big deal to Americans, but I’d wager in Europe it’ll seem pretty normal.
http://laalexovich.wordpress.com laalexovich

Public urination is a crime in America… don’t Europeans have similar laws? If I were in the situation, I’d weigh the pros and cons and pay the fee, rather than dealing with much larger fines later. It’s not like you can do your business anywhere on an airplane and walk away like nothing happened. There’s nowhere to run.
http://arisandino.wordpress.com arisandino

This is a terrible policy; see http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/ryanairs-bathroom-policy-angers-customers/19434103
colmert

In removing two bathrooms, Ryanair has created an intolerable situation for the millions of people who suffer from shy bladder syndrome (paruresis). As it is, most of us already have trouble urinating in airplane lavatories. Now, with long lines waiting to use the ONE available lavatory, it will become impossible.

Carol Olmert
Author, “Bathrooms Make Me Nervous”
http://www.bathroomsmakemenervous.com
http://www.paruresis.org
http://evanfoster2.wordpress.com evanfoster2

As a protest, one could always pee in the sick bag, then hand it to the hostess for disposal!