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Delta Air Lines Kicks Passenger Off Flight For Using Bathroom While Plane Was Waiting To Take Off

Kima Hamilton said FBI agents met him at the terminal.

You can’t always control your urge to pee, and one Delta Air Lines passenger was desperate.

But his decision to use the plane's washroom got him kicked off the flight.

Kima Hamilton had boarded a flight from Atlanta, Ga. to Milwaukee, Wis. earlier this month when he felt a strong need to urinate, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Passengers were told it was in third position to take off, fellow passenger Krista Rosolino wrote in a blog post.

Hamilton told the Journal Sentinel that the plane wasn’t moving, so he figured it was OK to get up to use the washroom at the back. A flight attendant told him if he did, the aircraft would lose its spot in line.

Krista wrote that her husband noted the plane had been waiting to take off for about half an hour.

Hamilton went back to his seat, but the urge got stronger, so he got back up again to relieve himself.

"The pilot came on and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry for the inconvenience but we have to return to the gate and remove a passenger,'" he told the Journal-Sentinel. "It escalated to that point that fast."

In a YouTube video, a flight attendant tells Hamilton that he has to get off.

“I had an emergency. I had to pee,” he tells the employee. “I just couldn’t hold it.”

Hamilton told the man he wanted an explanation, so Delta sent another flight attendant, who crouched down to Hamilton’s level.

The second man explained that all passengers had to be seated when the plane was taking off.

Everyone was forced to leave the plane, Krista wrote in her blog post. They re-boarded later without Hamilton.

"Ultimately we lost hours because of a 30-second bathroom trip," Krista's husband Michael told WTMJ-TV.

"I think we would admit that no other industry could get away with this type of behaviour."

FBI agents greeted Hamilton inside the terminal in Atlanta, he told WISN. They planned to arrest him, but decided not to after hearing his version of events and talking to other passengers.

He told WTMJ-TV that he was refunded half the cost of his flight. But Delta grounded him and he was forced to buy one from another airline at triple the price.

"I think we would admit that no other industry could get away with this type of behaviour."

In a statement to WISN, Delta said “it is imperative that passengers comply with crew instructions during all phases of flight, especially at the critical points of takeoff and landing."

But Krista wrote that a passenger on a different flight told her that a similar scenario on board her plane was handled differently.

In that instance, a flight attendant told the pilot not to move because there were two people in the washroom.

Krista wrote that she will never fly Delta again.

"I think you may have forgotten that your passengers are people too," she wrote.

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