United Passenger Says She Was Forced to Pee in Cup on Flight From Houston

A passenger on a United Airlines flight from Houston says flight attendants refused to let her use the restroom and forced her to urinate in a cup instead.The airline, however, denies that anyone in the flight crew told Nicole Harper to use a cup.Harper, a nurse from Kansas, said she was midflight on April 10 headed to Kansas City when she got up to use the restroom, she wrote in a Facebook post. The flight crew ordered her to return to her seat until the pilot turned off the seat-belt sign."After explaining that I have an overactive bladder and would either need to use the restroom or pee in a cup, I was handed a cup by flight attendants," she wrote.She shared her allegation with two TV stations in Kansas, KSHB-TV and KCTV-TV, saying she filled two cups with her husband's assistance."I was thinking I was on candid camera or being punked at this point," she told KCTV.After that, attendants escorted her to the restroom to empty the cups “shaming [her] down the aisle while other passengers overlooked,” she said.“The flight attendants treated me like I had committed a crime, stating they would be filing a report, calling in the hazmat team to clean the entire row (let me mention there was no mess involved),” she wrote in the post.Harper says she submitted a complaint to the airline afterward and has tried to contact customer service but it’s been a “runaround,” she wrote in the May 6 post.United Airlines released a statement regarding the incident:"Customer safety is always our first priority. Initial reports from the Mesa Airlines flight attendants indicate that Ms. Harper attempted to visit the lavatory on descent and was instructed to remain seated with the seat belt fastened per FAA regulations. At no point during the flight did flight attendants suggest that Ms. Harper use cups instead of the lavatory. We have reached out to Ms. Harper to better understand what occurred and we continue to review what happened."  Continue reading...