JetBlue Flight Fail: Airline's Space Saving Bathroom Plan Backfires

JetBlue’s plan to generate more revenue by shrinking bathrooms backfired when the bathrooms began failing, according to the Los Angeles Times Saturday.

The company’s Chief Financial Officer Steve Priest announced the bathroom problems during an earnings call with industry analysts this week. The bathrooms were installed on 21 of JetBlue’s A321 planes and the planes will all need to be taken in for maintenance to repair “design failures with the space-efficient lavatories.”

A spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that the bathroom’s had alignment issues that led them to be out of service at points.

The bathrooms, Space Flex 2 lavatories, are built by French company Zodiac Aerospace. Traditional airplane lavatories are located on either side of the back of the plane in front of the kitchen where flight crew prepares food. The Space Flex bathrooms are squished together on one side of the plane behind the kitchen area.

Installing the newer, smaller bathrooms can squeeze 12 extra seats on to a plane and JetBlue foresaw the move as one that could lead to a $100-million increase in revenue.

Bathroom repairs began in September and JetBlue has managed to fix one-third of its planes. The company said it wants to fix the bathrooms on its A321 planes before it begins installing the bathrooms on its A320 planes.

“We’re doing this before we begin modifications on our A320s to avoid having to take aircraft out of service at a later date,” said Priest.