European discount airline Ryanair has made headlines for reasons related to their bathrooms in the past: five years ago, we took note of their plan to charge customers to use the toilets, and to remove some toilets from the plane altogether. Yet some passengers on a flight from Murcia, Spain to London, England were horrified to learn that there would be no toilet paper or milk on board their flight.

There’s one thing that no one seems to be pointing out in any of the news coverage of this, maybe because it’s all UK-based and they simply assume that Brits know how long it takes to fly home from Spain. However, the flight itself takes about an hour and forty-five minutes. While we empathize with people experiencing bowel and bladder emergencies, and waits on the runway can be lengthy, that still isn’t a very long time to firmly cross your legs and will the plane to move faster.

Unfortunately for passengers who planned on using the plane’s restrooms, passengers only learned about this after boarding, so they couldn’t buy a pouch of portable tissues or grab a handful of toilet paper from the airport’s public facilities.

In a statement, Ryanair explained that their choice came down to delaying the flight to wait for a fresh delivery of toilet paper and milk, or taking off on time and suffering without.

Our crew explained to passengers that we wished to prioritise an on time departure for London Stansted rather than wait for these items to be delivered and cause a significant [air traffic control] delay for all our customers.

People do hate travel delays more than they hate delaying trips to the loo, so they probably made the right decision here.

No toilet roll on Ryanair flight from Murcia to London [Gloucestershire Echo]

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