[imagesource: View From The Wing]

There’s no other dampener on your fancy business class upgrade quite like a literal dampening.

A woman had her parade rained on while aboard an Emirates flight from Dubai to Sydney after an inebriated customer got a little too loose-goosy.

The unfortunate passenger, who understandably wishes to remain anonymous, sent in her complaint to The Telegraph‘s ‘Consumer Champion’ Katie Morley, who investigated the scene and fought for a more fair compensation for the passenger.

The passenger had flown with Emirates a number of times before and had racked up a nice 108 000 miles to upgrade to business class for the long 13-hour leg from Dubai to Sydney.

But she lost out on the luxury with a particularly rowdy group of individuals seated at the rear of the Airbus A380 cabin took things too far:

One of the men drunkenly approached my seat and wanted to sit down, convinced it was his. His friend led him away, but then around an hour or so later, the same thing happened once more.

Image: DMARGE

Things took a real turn for the worse when the man returned for a third time. Sidling up to the long-suffering woman once again, the man began to undo his trousers, intending to relieve himself on her:

My husband had to push him away. Apparently this man had already urinated on his own seat.

This man totally ruined our business class journey and I got absolutely no sleep whatsoever because I was terrified that if I shut my eyes he would come back and relieve himself on me.

While Emirates was quick to express its “disappointment” on learning of the passenger’s subpar experience, the lady is completely annoyed at the lack of immediate action taken by the airline staff during and after the flight.

Being drunk and disorderly on a plane and indecently exposing oneself in public are potentially criminal offences, often resulting in fines and even prison sentences. But Emirates did not step up in this regard at all.

While the lady probably deserves a full reimbursement of the 108 000 miles spent on this piss-filled experience, Emirates only gave her 20 000 miles as a “gesture of goodwill”.

The point is, as the passenger points out, the situation would not have arisen had Emirates stopped serving alcohol to the man in question. Katie agreed:

…By allowing him to remain onboard, Emirates must have been aware of the negative effect this man, sozzled up to his eyeballs, was having on fellow passengers.

If it was prepared to either let him on the plane drunk in the first place, or serve him enough liquor to get sloshed mid-flight, then it had to accept the consequences. These were either: diverting the plane and kicking him off, or managing the situation so other passengers were not adversely affected.

With Katie’s intervention, the airline eventually offered a further 60 000 air miles instead of the initial 20 000.

You may upgrade to a more luxurious flying experience, but still, there is clearly still plenty of room for a less-than-luxury experience.

[source:telegraph]