Continental Airlines Inc. is offering a group of passengers special travel vouchers. The coupons are not, however, part of any kind of promotional strategy - they're compensation for what passengers endured on a Continental trans-Atlantic flight last week.

Things went wrong on Flight 71 right from the beginning when it took off June 13 from Amsterdam bound for Newark, N.J. The pilot decided to land the plane in Shannon, Ireland, after passengers complained of blockage in the lavatories.

The plane was sent for repairs and took off again the following day, but the problem only got worse as sewage from the lavatories flowed into the aisles. Enraged passengers were further offended when flight attendants told them not to eat much.

"I've never felt so offended in all my life. I felt like I had been physically abused and neglected. I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours," a passenger told the Seattle's KING5 television station.

The Houston, Texas-based airline blamed the blockage on a pair of latex gloves that had been flushed down the plane's toilet.