A passenger allegedly needed to sit beneath unidentified drippage from an overhead bag for a complete flight after crew refused to maneuver her or the leaky baggage.
Sophie Shaw, 24, from California, was flying on US funds airline Southwest Airways from San Jose to Santa Ana, when the sudden occurred.
She shared a clip of the unlucky state of affairs to TikTok, amassing greater than 3.5 million views.
“It was the worst expertise on a airplane I’ve ever had,” she mentioned. “It was like Chinese language Water torture.”
The cabin cascade occurred final month whereas the passenger was en path to see buddies in Los Angeles, the New York Put up reviews.
The San Francisco native, founding father of AI enterprise Azuryne, claims she fell asleep shortly after takeoff however awakened after noticing that her “leg and seat had been fully soaked”.
Sophie initially thought the woman subsequent to her had spilt water till she seemed up and noticed “a giant drip coming from the ceiling”.
Accompanying footage reveals the unidentified droplets plopping down from a niche within the overhead, splattering the passenger’s seat as if she was sitting beneath a leaky roof throughout a monsoon.
That’s when she recalled seeing crew try to staunch the leakage earlier than takeoff.
“They put some paper towels within the locker, so I assume they’d tried to repair one thing however they couldn’t,” Sophie mentioned.
Attributable to her petite stature, the 5-foot-2 tech-spert claims she couldn’t transfer the bag, so she enlisted a flight attendant’s assist.
Sadly, the flight attendant “wasn’t sympathetic in any respect” to her undesired bathe.
“I pressed the button and instructed the flight attendant however I believed she checked out me as if I used to be a nuisance,” Sophie recounted.
“I believe it ought to have been her job to make a much bigger deal out of it however she simply mentioned the flight was too full and he or she couldn’t transfer the bags.”
Because of this, the sopping-wet traveller was compelled to take a seat beneath the waterfall for your complete one-and-a-half-hour flight.
“I attempted to shove myself to at least one half of the seat to keep away from the dripping however my pants had been fully soaked and I used to be mainly sitting in a puddle,” she lamented.
To make issues worse, periodic turbulence made the water land in several spots like droplet roulette, so even her sneakers bought soggy.
Final month, air journey specialists ranked the overhead bin as one of many dirtiest spots on the airplane as a result of it’s “hardly ever cleaned” and “touched by lots of people”.
“It was actually disgusting to take a seat by and I used to be feeling fairly grossed out your complete time so I actually simply closed my eyes and listened to music to try to block it out,” Sophie mentioned.
“I believe they need to have provided to wash it up themselves on the naked minimal and rearranged the bags to try to cease the drip.”
Upon touching down, Sophie instantly filed a criticism to the assistance desk, who suggested her to ship in an internet declare.
Southwest responded inside eight hours, providing the traveller $US150 (($A224) as compensation, which she deemed stingy provided that her flight was $US160 ($A240).
Sophie contacted the funds airline once more however they didn’t reply.
The TikTok commentariat was much more sympathetic to Sophie’s “air drop” nightmare, though many thought she might’ve been extra assertive about dealing with it.
“I’d’ve mentioned so loudly ‘WHOSE BAG IS THIS !!!!’” one particular person wrote, whereas one other added, “The scene I’d make! Completely not. Y’all are both tossing that bag or I’m!”
A 3rd chimed in, “Helllllllll nooooooooooooo. I’m non confrontational however I’d be confronting.”
This text initially appeared on New York Put up and was reproduced with permission