Passengers love to hate airplane lavatories: You stand in a long line in order to step into a small, cramped room, which lights up only after you close the door and lock it. The toilets themselves look like prison bathrooms, and they typically make a lot of noise when flushed.
Don’t blame Boeing or Airbus for long bathroom lines. Decisions about the number of
lavatories on a plane, how large they should be, and what amenities they have are all made by the airline companies. Typically, there’s an average of about one toilet for every forty-six passengers in economy class, and one for every eleven seats in first class, but the average Boeing 737 has only one toilet for every sixty-three coach passengers.
Neither Boeing nor Airbus actually constructs the lavatories themselves; like almost everything else inside the cabin, these are modular units designed and manufactured by outside
suppliers. Airbus purchases “lavs” from German-based Dasell Cabin Interior, while Boeing uses the Japanese firms Jamco and Yokohama Rubber for their wide-body and narrow-body jets, respectively.
Of course, today’s toilets have come a long way since the 1920s and 1930s, when raising the toilet seat would reveal nothing more than a hole to the passing landscape below. Flush toilets made their debut in the ultraelegant Boeing 314 “Clippers” and were slowly refined until 1982, when Boeing introduced the first in-flight vacuum toilet system.
Vacuum toilets are far superior to the old flush types for several reasons. First, they require very little water—only about eight ounces of water per flush, rather than over a gallon of blue disinfectant in the older toilets. (Water weighs about 8.3 pounds per gallon, so carrying less water means a lighter, more efficient airplane.)
Couples engaging in in-flight sex is rare, but less rare than you might think. Cramped lavatories may be lacking in atmosphere, but they seem to be a popular spot for gaining
entrance to the “Mile High Club.” In fact, Virgin Atlantic Airways recently announced plans to retrofit newly introduced baby changing stations in the “lavs” on their aircraft because they keep getting broken. (Virgin has surmised that the damage is more likely due to amorous couples than to oversized babies.)
Second, the old toilets emptied into separate holding tanks directly beneath each lavatory, which leaked less-than-pleasant smells. Vacuum systems work by momentarily opening a valve to the outside air, creating a pressure differential that sucks the contents from the toilet bowl (which is lined with a teflon-like substance) through pipes to a holding tank in the back of the airplane at about 100 feet per second. If the aircraft is below 16,000 feet, the pressure difference between the air inside and outside the airplane isn’t great enough, so there’s a built- in “backup” vacuum-generator. The vacuum systems are lighter, easier to fix, and easier to clean than the flush systems (the holding tank is emptied every time the airplane lands).
Another reason the vacuum toilet systems are generally less smelly is that some lavatory air is sucked out, too. However, on occasion, flight attendants are forced to place coffee packets in the lavatories. (They claim coffee is a natural deodorant.) Or they will pull the sink plunger up for a short time in order to suck out more air. This works partly because the sinks aren’t
connected to the toilet holding tanks; instead, sink water is sprayed out the back of the aircraft during flight, where it vaporizes. The small nozzle near the tail must be specially heated so that it doesn’t freeze up at the extremely cold cruising-altitude temperatures.
Curiously, some passengers dislike the vacuum toilets because they’re afraid of being sucked in. Don’t worry; the hole is simply too small. It is worth noting, however, that you shouldn’t try flushing the toilet while seated. In 2001, a passenger flying across the Atlantic on a Boeing 767 became vacuum sealed to a toilet seat after flushing—mechanics were later able to pry her loose after the aircraft landed.
Whatever you do, don’t try to smoke in an airplane toilet or disconnect the smoke detector.
These are federal offenses for a reason: In 1973, a Boeing 707 jet had to make an emergency landing outside Paris after a fire was started in one of the lavatories, probably from a disposed cigarette. By the time the airplane landed and a rescue crew could open the airplane, almost all the passengers had died. Ten years later, an electrical fire broke out in a lavatory on a flight from Texas to Canada, and half the passengers and crew were killed.
To begin their boarding process, the airline announces they will preboard certain
passengers. And I wonder, How can that be? How can people board before they
board? This I gotta see … Then they mention that
it ’ s a nonstop flight.
Well, I must say I don ’ t
care for that sort of thing. Call me old- fashioned, but I insist that my flight stop.
Preferably at an airport.
Somehow those sudden cornfield stops interfere
with the flow of my day … As
part of the continuing
folderol, I ’ m asked to put
my seat-back forward. Well, unfortunately for the
others in the cabin, I
don ’ t bend that way. If I could put my seat-back
forward I ’ d be in porno
movies.
Then they say we ’ ll be
“ landing shortly. ” Doesn ’ t
that sound like we ’ re
going to miss the runway?
“ Final approach ” is not
too promising either.
“ Final ” is not a good word to be using on an airplane.
Sometimes the pilot will
speak up and say, “ We ’ ll be
on the ground in fifteen
minutes. ” Well that ’ s a
little vague … Which brings
us to terminal. Another unfortunate word to be using in association with air travel. And they use it all over the airport,
don ’ t they? Somehow I can ’ t
get hungry at a place called The Terminal
Restaurant. Then again, if
you ’ ve ever eaten there, you know the name is quite
appropriate. ”
— George Carlin, NAPALM & SILLY PUTTY