TravelBug:

A wee case of elitism

It's official - Australia's high-fliers are piss weak!
Ansett Airlines apparently has decreed that the forward lavatory on many domestic flights is for the use of Business-First class passengers only.
Clearly, Ansett wants to ensure that their lucrative Business-First customers can get to do their business first.
And by making a much larger number of economy class passengers share the two lavatories at the rear of the jet cabin, Ansett clearly thinks that a handful of their elite passengers are very much the piss elegant.
For those poor souls in cattle class, meanwhile, the crush for the two cubicles must at times be a total pain in the rear.
This new decree became obvious to The Bug during a recent Melbourne-Brisbane flight.
Just after lift-off from Tullamarine Airport, the cabin manager of the Boeing A320-211 Skystar dinner-time service made it clear that while there were two washrooms at the rear of the cabin, the forward washroom was "for the use of Business-First passengers".
Talk about putting some people on a pedestal – of their own.
Naturally enough, The Bug's senior travel writer, strapped to the port wing on one of those three-year advanced fare deals he covets, was appalled by what the cabin manager inferred, if not stated outright.
He climbed through a window and made his way non-aft to check out this piddling decree.
Now, the configuration on this particular A320 flight meant that only the first three rows – 12 pampered people in all – were given over to Business-First creature comforts.
With the one cubicle to call their own up front, that's a passenger/pottie ratio of 12 to 1.
A quick glance in the excellent in-flight magazine Panorama revealed that the A320 has seating for 144 people. Granted, this flight was not quite full, but at the worst possible scenario, that leaves 132 cattle class folk to fight over two dunnies – a PP ration of a bladder-busting 66 to one.
Now we don't begrudge those in Business-First some creature comforts.
For their extra money, they have quite a few perks.
There's those comfy chairs with heaps of leg and elbow room, all the better to relax in to sip that proffered pre-flight orange juice served in a real glass and crushed by hand in the galley moments before.
And up in the air, there's the fancy restaurant-style menu, accompanied by quality Aussie reds and whites poured straight from the bottle. Plenty of booze, too, right up to landing.
And long after cattle class have had their tincup and string headphones yanked off them a good 15 minutes before flight's end, you're sitting pretty with those fancy stereo ear phonesets – with the stereo plug that fits neatly into the armrest jacket and actually works – as some Baroque classic lulls your senses.
You don't even spare a thought for the great unwashed behind you, with their headphone plug constantly being crushed against their thigh, pushing their earplugs further and further into their skulls in a futile bid to detect audible noise, and still all that one ear can hear is the other listening intently.
Business-First passengers also have the advantage of being the first into any mountain in the aircraft's way. Can you imagine how messy it is for those in cattle class by the time they go in. Yechtttt!! All that guts and stuff to slosh into. It must be unbearable.
No, Business First has a lot going for it – but should that mean a designated dunny at their disposal?
It seems so un-Australian to divide potties up into the have and the hold-ons, especially for a flight that can take well over two hours if there's a strong headwind.
Besides, is any one in cattle class really going to be conned by this snobbish attempt at apisstheid?
Do you think that anyone sitting in row 4, for example, with a non-illuminated "toilet occupied" sign just metres in front of them, is going to do the right thing by the cabin manager?
Crane their necks around, peer all the way down the aisle to see if the toilet signs 30metres away are unlit, then trundle down the back, and, if they get there before someone else does, it will be a blessed relief.
They're going to go up front, no matter how disturbing their comings and goings might be to the refined people in the comfy seats.
And so they should.
Sorry, Ansett, but giving Business-First people their own toilet is piss-poor public relations.

- Don Gordon-Brown