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The Street
The Street
Veronika Bondarenko

Air Canada discovers that insisting customers sit in vomit-covered seats is a bad idea

When it comes to disgusting plane moments, it's been a particularly busy week. 

A Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) flight on the way to Barcelona on Sept. 1 had to turn back around to Atlanta two hours into the flight due to a "biohazard issue" that was later revealed to be a passenger's explosive diarrhea.

A video that a passenger on a Vietnam Airlines flight filmed of another traveler's "smelly and dirty" feet on her armrest has also been going viral on several social media platforms.

Don't Miss: An American Airlines captain's rant on plane etiquette is going viral

Another viral incident occurred on an Air Canada (ACDVF) -) flight from Las Vegas to Montreal. As one of the travelers later reported on Facebook (META) -), passengers had boarded the plane and observed "a bit of a foul smell" emanating from several seats.

'Coffee grounds in the seat pouch and sprayed perfume to mask the smell'

"Apparently, on the previous flight someone had vomited in that area," New Brunswick resident Susan Benson wrote in a post that has since gathered more than 3,300 likes. "Air Canada attempted a quick cleanup before boarding but clearly wasn’t able to do a thorough clean. They placed coffee grinds in the seat pouch and sprayed perfume to mask the smell."

As Benson later described both in the post and in media interviews once the incident went viral, passengers who were assigned to sit in those seats flagged the matter to a flight attendant but were told that the flight was full — when the passengers pressed the matter, they were given blankets and wipes to clean up the seats themselves.

"The best Air Canada could do," Benson continued along with an emoji of an eyeroll. "They got themselves settled with blankets and wipes and next thing we knew the pilot came down the aisle and very calmly knelt down and told the two ladies that they had two choices: They could leave the plane on their own accord and organize flights on their own dime, or they would be escorted off the plane by security and placed on a no fly list!"

While Benson was not one of the women given a vomit-stained seat, she was outraged at hearing the pilot suggest that they could be banned from flying for "being rude to the flight attendant" when they were simply firmly saying that they should not sit in a vomit-stained seat. 

Sorry for vomit-stained seat, Air Canada says (after online outrage)

Security eventually entered the plane and escorted the women off the flight. Benson wrote that she was ashamed of Canada's national airline and "cannot not stop thinking about these two ladies" and the injustice of being treated that way for "refusing to sit in vomit for five hours."

A week after the incident went viral and multiple media questions about whether the airline disputed the account of the incident, Air Canada apologized to the two passengers and issued a statement saying that it "clearly did not receive the standard of care to which they were entitled."

It has not said whether the flight attendants or pilot were disciplined in any way.

"We are reviewing this serious matter internally and have followed up with the customers directly as our operating procedures were not followed correctly in this instance," Air Canada said in a statement. "We remain in contact with them about this matter."

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