The following letter is a completely serious complaint about our recent flights to and from Kauai, and I formally filed it with United Airlines earlier today. This is only the beginning of my campaign against the airline on this issue. Trust me.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a travel writer, Mileage Plus member (No. xxxxxxxxxxx) and former Premier-status traveler, and my wife and I just returned on a round trip, non-stop journey from SFO to LIH (respective travel dates were May 31 and June 10, 2010; our ticket numbers were xxxxxxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxxxx). We traveled with our one-year-old daughter, whom we took with us as a “lapchild.”

Based upon our experiences, we likely won’t fly with our daughter on your airline again until she’s out of diapers.

The first problem: Despite the popularity of SFO-Hawaii routes among families, we were appalled to discover that the 757x aircraft on that route lack changing tables. The second problem: Once we learned of this situation, flight attendants unapologetically informed us that the two options to change our child’s dirty diapers were to change her on the floor in the galley (grossly unsanitary for our daughter) or to change her on our seats (grossly unsanitary for us, the people around us and other passengers who might sit there later in the day).

Ultimately, we changed our daughter on the sticky galley floor. On one occasion, a flight attendant had the audacity to ask my wife to “move” the naked baby so she (the flight attendant) could get her trash cart by.

How did the situation even come to this?

Over our daughter’s first year of life, we have taken two other United flights from SFO to OGG (Maui). Both of those planes had at least one changing table in an aft bathroom. Why do the Kauai planes lack them? How difficult is it to install flip-down changing tables? Even FAA weight requirements must allow for an additional 5 pounds of hardware. If they don’t—especially considering how many families take these flights—how hard would it be to come up with a more sanitary alternative?

Furthermore, if the 757x aircraft you use on the SFO-LIH route don’t have changing tables, why didn’t the reservation agent inform us of this fact when we called to notify you we’d be bringing a “lapchild?” Surely the agent would have informed us if we were purchasing a ticket on a plane with no bathrooms for grown-ups. How is the lack of facilities for infants any different?

Quite frankly, if we had known about the changing table situation before booking our flights, we likely would have booked with a different carrier (and even weathered a plane-change). With this in mind, unless you make the simple investment to add changing tables on your SFO-LIH flights (or you start notifying passengers traveling with infants what they’re getting themselves into), the next time we travel to Kauai, we likely will spend our money elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Matt Villano