Corpse Flies First Class on British Airways

Elderly Woman Passed Away After Take Off

By Jerry Garner

First Class passengers on a British Airways flight between New Delhi and London were in for a surprise on Monday, as the body of an expired passenger was moved from the Economy Class to an available seat in First Class. According to statistics provided by the airline, this happens more often than you would expect.

British Airways is the third largest air carrier in Europe, and the leading airline in the United Kingdom. The company was officially formed in 1935 as several smaller carriers merged into one company. The precursor airlines dated back to as early as 1919. The airline flies more than 35 million passengers per year to destinations around the world.

The flight was all but routine for an elderly passenger who was flying from the Indian capitol of New Delhi to London’s Heathrow airport. The flight began late Sunday night and arrived in the United Kingdom Monday morning. Three hours into the flight, the 70 year old woman passed away on the aircraft.

The company’s official “Corpse Policy” is to cover the deceased with a blanket and, if an empty seat is available, to relocate the body to a First Class seat where there are fewer people to be disturbed by the passenger’s untimely demise. The airline acted in a consistent manner last November when an American man passed away during the six hour flight from London to Boston.

What complicated Monday morning’s flight was that the body of the deceased was seated next to a sleeping passenger who closed his eyes to an empty seat and awoke to a corpse being buckled into the seat next to him.

Paul Trinder, a 54 year old British Airways Gold Card holder, awoke at 30,000 feet to see the flight crew moving the woman to the seat next to him.

"I woke to see cabin crew maneuvering what looked like a sack of potatoes into the seat. Slowly, through the darkness, I realized it was a body. At first, I thought I was dreaming.” Trinder said in an interview with the UK Daily Mirror.

"The corpse was strapped into the seat but because of turbulence it kept slipping down on to the floor. It was horrific. The body had to be wedged in place with lots of pillows,” Trinder continued.

Trinder, who had paid £4,000 for the Delhi-Heathrow flight, was seated next to the corpse for the remaining five hours of the trip, along with mourning family members who were “moaning and wailing” hysterically.

Trinder reported that he did not realize that the elderly woman was deceased at first. When he told the flight crew that she did not look so good, the flight attendants replied that they had called for a doctor, but that it was too late and the passenger had expired. Trinder then asked if they knew why she had passed away, noting that she could have some form of infectious disease.

"You could see they'd never thought of it. They looked at each other open-mouthed. It was surreal.” Trinder said.

When Trinder complained that he was seated next to a corpse, he was told to “get over it”. He was informed that the airline’s “Corpse Policy” would be followed.

Trinder and others were shocked that the event happens frequently enough for the airline to actually write a policy for how to handle corpses. Statistics released by the airline report that, on average, one person dies on a British Airways flight each month.

In a public press announcement, the company apologized for the incident, saying, " "We apologize, but our crew were working in difficult circumstances and chose the option they thought would cause least disruption."

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