By Scott McCartney
Here are the No. 1 and No. 2 problems for many on airlines these
days: shrunken bathrooms -- especially in coach.
As more planes get fitted with slim lavatories, more passengers
are complaining they don't fit. Twisting and turning is difficult
for some. Washing up in a minuscule sink occasionally ends in
splashed clothes.
"Airplane bathrooms are a horror show," says frequent traveler
Tad DeOrio. If a flight is under two hours, he now stops drinking
fluids an hour before so he can avoid a trip to a washroom.
Perhaps because of traveler discomfort, the airline industry,
usually ready with information about new aircraft, is holding on to
even simple data like measurements of the new bathrooms. Airlines
also don't publicize a simple tip travelers might want to know: The
bathrooms up front, often in first class, are typically larger than
the ones in the back for coach.
Boeing Co., which started delivering slim lavs last year,
declined to comment or release any dimensions or percentages of
airlines taking slim over standard. Boeing referred questions to
airlines. Several airlines referred queries to Boeing.
Delta Air Lines responded with a written statement highlighting
big overhead bins. The airline said its aircraft with smaller
bathrooms -- 737-900s and A321s -- have "features that customers
tell us are more important to them," like large overhead bins,
in-flight entertainment and power ports at every seat.
Rockwell Collins, a maker of lavs for Boeing 737s and other
aircraft, said dimensions are proprietary. Of course, anyone with a
ticket and tape measure could get the secret numbers.
So I did. On recent flights, older bathrooms measured about 33
to 34 inches wide at chest level, from the mirror on one side to
the wall on the other. A new Rockwell Collins lav on a Southwest
Airlines 737 measured just 26 inches, or about 20% smaller.
A spokesman for Southwest says it hasn't had measurable
complaints about the new loos.
Depending what the airline chooses, some slimmer bathrooms are
showing up on new planes. In other cases, smaller rest rooms are
replacing larger ones on older planes.
Shrink the bathrooms in the front and the rear each by 7 inches
and you're halfway to an extra row of six seats on a typical
narrow-body plane on ultra-low-cost carriers. Additional space
savings come from shrinking galleys, removing closets and pushing
seats closer together. Another row of seats adds up to tens of
millions of dollars in ticket sales over the life of an
airplane.
The industry argues that small bathrooms benefit travelers.
Shrinking lavs 7 inches means two additional rows of seats can
become extra-legroom rows. Or having an extra row means more people
can fly.
Trevor Skelly, a Rockwell Collins vice president, says changes
in design give some space back to passengers. One version of the
company's "advanced" bathrooms has a wall that curves in so that
seats up against it outside can recline. (Before, the last row
typically didn't recline.)
"I hear the debate, but to me you're trading off a few minutes
in a toilet for five hours in a seat," Mr. Skelly, says. "You spend
a lot more time in the seat than you do in the bathroom,
hopefully."
Airbus launched its version of slim lavs about six years ago
after discount airlines pushed for ways to get more seats on
planes. Traditional full-service airlines quickly adopted them.
Airplane orders with the small lavs are increasing faster than
standard lavs, says Roser Roca Toha, Airbus's aircraft interiors
marketing director for the Americas.
The widest Airbus washroom, about 36 to 37 inches when measured
at floor level, sits in the front of new JetBlue planes, Ms. Roca
Toha says. (The lavs are actually a few inches slimmer at chest or
belt level.) Space-saving lavs, about 5 inches slimmer at floor
level, are used in the rear of JetBlue planes and others.
Slim bathrooms are designed from ergonomic studies to
accommodate 95% of American males, Ms. Roca Toha says. That means
some portion of the population really doesn't fit when you combine
the Airbus number with Boeing's slim lavs and tiny bathrooms in
small regional jets. And body size isn't the only obstacle --
people with limited mobility can struggle in tight confines.
The first Airbus plane with a slim lav delivered in North
America was an A321 to Delta about three years ago. "No one has
complained to us," Ms. Roca Toha says.
Hawaiian Airlines is among those bucking the trend. It says it
isn't using Lilliputian lavs in its new A321s, which typically fly
five-hour trips between the islands and the West Coast.
"We tried out the smaller lav options in mock-ups, but they did
not feel like the kind of product we wanted to fly ourselves," a
Hawaiian spokesman says.
American Airlines, later to puny potties than competitors,
introduced its first last fall on new Boeing 737 MAX airplanes.
Pilots and flight attendants complained in meetings with senior
executives.
American Chief Executive Doug Parker says the backlash surprised
him since the same rest room has been flying on other airlines.
Space in the cabin is all a trade-off, he noted. "I'd rather have
that two inches in the cabin as opposed to in the rest room," he
says.
Mr. Parker says there were two specific problems the airline has
since corrected. Water pressure was too high in the small sink and
people got splashed, so American dialed back the pressure. And two
lavs across from each other both had solid doors that collided and
could trap flight attendants in the aft galley. One door was
switched to a bi-fold design that doesn't open out.
Regulations require bathrooms big enough to accommodate
wheelchair-bound passengers on wide-body planes, but not
narrow-body. Paralyzed Veterans of America filed a lawsuit in July
trying to force adoption of narrow-body requirements.
Blaine Stuart is a 6-foot-2, 240-pound entrepreneur from Hawaii,
bothered by the small lavs flying on United from Los Angeles to
Hilo, Hawaii.
"The whole deal is getting super-cramped and uncomfortable," Mr.
Stuart says. "I understand they are trying to maximize profits, but
there's a balance. I don't think they've found it."
Write to Scott McCartney at middleseat@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 29, 2018 10:46 ET (14:46 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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