We wrote last week about the apparent decline in the number of toilets on planes, combined with the increase in people flying on planes, making for more congestion when it comes to using a toilet.
No-one can deny that the average number of passengers per flight has greatly increased. But has the ratio between toilets and seats on planes also decreased? Or is most of the toilet congestion a combination of more seats being filled, and less available time to access the toilets due to ever more cautious pilots leaving the Fasten Seatbelt sign on longer?
In a follow-up article, we now take a look at the actual ratios of toilets to seats on a representative cross-section of current and older planes, dating back to one of the last long-distance turbo-prop planes (the DC-7) and the first ever passenger jet (the Comet).
In among a bewildering mix of airplane types and configurations, we also carefully study the 13 different types of cabin configurations on the new Airbus A380 super-jumbos, because that perhaps most clearly reveals the current divergence in airline thinking as to how many (or, alas, how few) toilets they can get away with installing on new passenger planes. The best A380 operator is not the airline you’d expect, and the worst A380 operator is also a surprise, with 60% more seats per toilet than offered by the best airline.
For the full story, please click over to now visit our article on Airplane Toilet Trends.
