BA Passenger from Delhi Travels First Class With Corpse

A British Airways passenger told today how he awoke on his First Class flight from Delhi to find crew had placed a corpse on the other side of the cabin.
Businessman Paul Trinder, 54, had dozed off in his £3000 First Class seat on the flight from Delhi to Heathrow, but awoke to a "commotion" in the darkened cabin.
He told how crew were moving what he later established was a person 'like a sack of potatoes', positioning her in a seat on the other side of the cabin and seatbelting her in.
He then discovered it was the body of an Indian woman in her 70s who had died in economy class and been taken to the front of the plane where there was more room.
Mr Trinder said that the procedure was so farcical he thought he was the victim of a practical joke, explaining how the turbulence was causing the lifeless body to 'rock and roll all over the place'.
His concerns that she could have died of an infectious disease prompted no action and he spent the next five hours of the flight last month with the body across the aisle from him.
He later spoke to British Airways to question their procedure of handling deaths in flights - and was told to 'get over it if you haven't got any better ideas', he said.
"I thought 'what are the family's feelings in all of this - their mother being carried 50 rows like a sack of potatoes?'
"I said 'we have got five hours to go at room temperature'. I asked if they knew what she had died of, if it was an infectious disease. It could have been an air born disease.
"You could tell they had never thought of it. They looked at each other open mouthed and you could tell that they had never thought of it but they didn't do anything about it.
"We finally got to Heathrow and nobody was allowed to leave to plane. The police and the coroner were sent on. There were police stopping people getting off.
Mr Trinder, chief executive of building manufacturers Capital Safety, said he later contacted BA to question their handling of the issue. The businessman, a BA gold card holder who travels 200,000 miles a year with the airline, said he was offered no compensation and told to 'get over it'.
A spokesman for BA said that the body was moved to First Class as there was more space, allowing the grieving family as much privacy as possible.
18/03/07 Life Style Extra, UK

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Categories: Foreign Mar 2007