The Flight of Your Life

A First Class passenger on a British Airways flight from Delhi to London was awakened by a disturbance caused by cabin crew placing a corpse in a seat at the end of his row.

Yes, a corpse.

The passenger awoke without any clue as to what was going on and noticed a woman looking quite “ill” and slipping under the seat belt from the motion of the plane. It was only when he asked the cabin crew what had happened that he was told she was dead. Apparently, there was no room in economy class (no surprise) for the body so she was “upgraded” to First Class. (If you’ve got to go, it may as well be in style!)

As if that wasn’t disturbing enough, the passenger spent the rest of the flight subjected to the “wailing” of the woman’s bereaved daughter in what he described as an “intense, primal” sound.

I know it must have been very upsetting and shocking to the relatives of the deceased, and the passenger tried to tolerate the “wailing” as long as he could (even using earplugs), but when he asked staff if something could be done he was told that he should “get over it” and that he would not be compensated.

I’m not sure how I would react. I consider myself to be a sensitive fellow but I think the experience would have been more than a little disturbing. Maybe I would have tried to console the daughter in an effort to calm her down.

On the other hand I think the airline’s reaction was reprehensible. They were the ones that had no procedure for handling this event and they expect their passengers to suffer. And before you say that no one could have foreseen this happening, bear in mind that Singapore Airlines has something called a “Corpse Cupboard” for just such an emergency. (Just how often are people dropping dead on these flights, anyway?!?) So next time you’re looking for a place to stow that oversized piece of luggage you smuggled on board, I’d think very carefully before opening any doors…