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Holiday travel for scores of passengers headed from Phoenix to Cleveland delayed a day over clogged toilet.
(Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dozens of passengers expecting to be on a nonstop flight Monday afternoon from Phoenix to Cleveland can rightly complain about a foul-up to their plans.
United Airlines Flight 294 had a "blockage in the lavatory," an airline spokesman said, forcing the carrier to cancel Flight 294 in order to get a toilet unstuck.
The nonstop flight was scheduled to leave Phoenix for Cleveland just before noon on Monday. United was able to rebook some customers who needed to make connecting flights in Cleveland on separate flights out of Phoenix Monday afternoon and evening.
But another 71 passengers whose final destination was Cleveland had to stay overnight in Phoenix. United put those flyers up at nearby hotels.
They left Arizona Tuesday morning and landed in Cleveland about 1:30 p.m. Their plane was the same Airbus mainline jet that had the restroom problem a day earlier.
"A blockage occurred in the lavatory, which caused several of the lavatories on the airplane to become inoperable," United spokesman Charles Hobart explained. "We realized we would have to cancel the flight in order to fix the aircraft."
Hobart said he didn't have details on what caused the toilet clog. But passenger Rick Milligan said United was quite open with passengers waiting at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix that a diaper was to blame.
"We're calling it diapergate," said Milligan. The Bay Village financial adviser, his wife and two children were returning from a trip to the Grand Canyon, where they woke up Christmas morning in lodgings on the South Rim.
The Milligans were moments from boarding a jet in Phoenix to fly home when United announced the departure would be delayed to fix a problem with a blocked toilet.
"They said they were going to snake it, and frankly, we thought that should be a pretty easy task," Milligan said.
Apparently not so. Four hours after Flight 294's scheduled departure, United said that it thought it had retrieved the diaper, but there was still fabric in the plumbing, Milligan said.
"After six hours of giving us diaper updates, they finally just cancelled the flight," he said.
United put the family up at an Embassy Suites hotel, where they retired for the night. Before going to sleep, Milligan shot an email to The Plain Dealer.
"A modern day jet was completely disabled," he fumed, "not because of a bomb threat, or even a mechanical breakdown, but because of a poopy baby diaper."