Man Sues Airline For Allegedly Forcing Him To Sit On A Toilet Seat During Long Flight

Wednesday May 14, 2008

Ask just about anyone and they'll have a story to tell you about lousy airline service. But the experience a New York City man says he had on board one carrier was so bad, he's actually taking it all the way to his state's Supreme Court.

His name is Gokhan Mutlu and the Manhattan man believes his time onboard a JetBlue flight last February trumps just about anything you may have ever gone through. He says he was forced to use a toilet as his seat for much of the journey.

How did that happen? Mutlu was flying from New York to San Diego on what's called a 'buddy pass,' a standby travel voucher the airline gives to employees for their friends to use. It doesn't guarantee anyone a spot on a flight, but if it's not full, a person can use it to get onboard.

At first it didn't look like that would happen, after a flight attendant took the last available passenger seat. But she decided to sit in a special chair called a 'jump seat' reserved only for employees. And so Mutlu got on the plane and the jet took off.

But 90 minutes into the journey, the lawsuit contends the flight attendant complained that the jump seat wasn't comfortable and decided to ask for her old chair back to make the five-and-a-half hour journey more bearable. That left the New York flyer as the odd man out, but there were no more seats available.

And that's when Mutlu alleges things took a turn for the decidedly odd. He claims one of the pilots came over to him and ordered him to go sit in the bathroom, because there were no other spots for him. He asked about the jump seat, but was told it was strictly reserved for employees and wasn't an option.

When he protested that he didn't want to spend nearly four hours sitting on a toilet seat, Mutlu alleges the man in charge bluntly told him "he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command, that (Mutlu) should be grateful for being on board," the lawsuit claims.

With no choice, the reluctant passenger headed for the bathroom and promptly took his seat. At some point, there was turbulence and travellers were told to return to their places and fasten their seatbelts. Mutlu contends the airline put his life in danger because he obviously didn't have access to one from his unusual perch. "The plaintiff had no seat to return to, sitting on a toilet stool with no seat belts," court papers say.

At some point, another attendant knocked on the bathroom door and told the weary man things had been worked out and he could go back to his original spot, where he finished the flight.

But he was furious and refused to let it drop. The result: a lawsuit asking for $2 million. Mutlu claims the airline was negligent and endangered his life by not providing him with legally required safety devices.

JetBlue has yet to comment on the allegations.