What should airlines do when a passenger dies?
March 21, 2007
It's not often the TW Blog finds common ground with Radio 4's Thought for the Day, but today's speaker took as her subject the death that occurred on a British Airways flight this week.
As you may have read in the national press, this left a First Class passenger sitting next to a corpse. Said passenger was not terribly happy.
We can empathise with their discomfort. But is it fair to chastise the airline? Were the passengers right to complain that 'there didn't seem to be a system for dealing with this kind of thing?'
What system do they envisage? Thinker for the Day Rosemary Lain-Priestley pointed out that death is never convenient. At 40,000 feet up in a metal tube it is still less so.
I know BA has become a media whipping boy, but is demand for leisure travel now driven by such desperate escapism that we expect suppliers to shield us from mortality itself?
Nathan Midgley, Travelweekly.co.uk
Nathan Midgley
Martin Couzins
Comments (3)
It is a difficult question to answer, what do you do with a corpse on a plane? I assume that there was some consultation with the daughter of the deceased who was on the plane. I think that would have made it a bit easier for staff to come to a decision. What were the other options, for the plane to return to Delhi? I am sure that would not have been convenient for all the other passengers. Is there not a policy for this eventuality or is it left to the discretion of the airline staff?
When the newspaper reports say another passenger was seated near the corpse, what exactly is near? I think that it is upsetting to be in such a situation but as you say Nathan, death is an unescapable fact of life.
Posted by Karen Bryan | March 21, 2007 11:39 AM
Posted on March 21, 2007 11:39
I've just been looking at the Times's report, which notes that "Singapore Airlines has introduced 'corpse cupboards' on its Airbus 340-500 aircraft" - which even then are only used if there are no empty seats. (There are an extraordinary number of comments on the piece, from people who work on cabin crews or have experienced similar situations - quite enlightening.)
Posted by Nathan | March 21, 2007 1:19 PM
Posted on March 21, 2007 13:19
Anyone who has read Air Babylon will know exactly what they do with dead bodies...
Posted by Kevin May | March 21, 2007 2:10 PM
Posted on March 21, 2007 14:10