Business Class Airline Passenger Forced To Sleep On Vomit-Filled Seat On Plane

A business class passenger on a British Airways flight from the Heathrow Airport in London to Seattle, Washington, claimed that he was shocked to find that his seat was covered with dried vomit.

Passenger Dave Gildea, 38, who works as the vice president of CloudRanger, a Silicon Valley software company, told the Sun Online Travel that he made the less-than-pleasant discovery after he upgraded his flight seat to business class two weeks ago.

"I had upgraded to business class at the airport in London Heathrow and was assigned seats 64K,” he said. “I didn't notice anything until about two hours into the British Airways flight when I popped down the footstool so I could get some sleep and saw the vomit on the seat. It was also splashed on the wall behind and the floor below, which I then noticed.”

When Gildea approached the flight crew regarding the matter, they asked him if he was the one who had vomited on the seats, despite the fact that it was a dried stain. He said, “…the attendants first response was 'was this here when you boarded?'” after which they provided no further assistance.

The flight attendant “didn't offer a seat change or an apology, so I asked for a blanket to cover it up so I could put my feet down,” he said. “Of course as I slept, I moved around on the blanket so I woke up with dried vomit on my feet. It was pretty disgusting. With the price I paid for the ticket, I was shocked."

Gildea added that while the airline company otherwise offered very good service and the rest of the flight was fine, he was appalled by the fact that the particular incident was so poorly handled. He claimed that there had been a lack of response from the airline’s part in weeks following the incident, except that it was looking into it.

"I tend to travel a lot - this was a very poor experience and the handling of the experience at the time and since then has been where the problem is. It's frustrating how they can take your money in a second for a ticket, but when it is a problem it takes weeks,” he said.

A British Airways spokesperson told the outlet: "We pride ourselves on delivering a high standard of service and an enjoyable experience on board our flights, and we are sorry that on this occasion this fell short of our customers' expectations. We are investigating and are in contact with the customer to apologize and resolve this matter.”