I think I would be fired pretty quickly if I insisted on putting on the mask every time someone went for a leak. Normal sector is on average 10 hours with at least one leak happening when I am in the left seat and one when I am in the right, on average. So would have to rip the scratch resistant guard of both masks every flight, they would require engineering to clean and restow both masks on every sector, they would need to top up the O2 on every sector.
I understand if safety was the top priority for airlines but lets be honest, it is not. If it was that would be sop, so would longer layovers, so would 4 crew on night flights over 9 hours. It is just the way it is, whenever someone goes for a leak I do make sure that nothing is covering the O2 mask, should not be anyway but just check, watch the cruise page a bit closer and always think that the first thing I am going to do is grab that mask if anything seems odd with the air or me or ears or display regarding pressurization.
Edited to ask how you would deal with this situation. London to Hong Kong, by the time you get to the high ground that is about 9 ish hours into the flight so there has been a fair bit of use of the cockpit O2 due to toilet breaks if you are required to don the mask if alone. The escape charts are based on the MEL dispatch O2 requirement for the route so I guess you would need to land in Novosibirsk to top up O2 to make it legal, I know the MEL is pre dispatch but surely good airmanship would require a diversion to top up with O2. Its all about profit and acceptable risk.
Last edited by SloppyJoe; 15th Mar 2010 at 13:02.