In a news report that sounds like a Monty Python skit, this article notes that British Airways upgraded a dead passenger to First Class, tying-up her decaying corpse into a first class seat and upgrading a grieving relative to First Class, where she screamed and wailed loudly for hours, disturbing all of the first-class passengers.
Dying to ride in First Class
Now, I’ve noted a decline in the quality of first class travel, but it’s reached a new low when dead corpses are moved from economy into the first class cabin and strapped-into seats:
“The body of a woman in her seventies, who died after the plane left Delhi for Heathrow, was carried by cabin staff from economy to first class, where there was more space. Her body was propped up in a seat, using pillows.
The woman’s daughter accompanied the corpse, and spent the rest of the journey wailing in grief.
Evidently, British Airways did not even bother to warn the first class passengers that they would be sharing the long ride with a body that had not even gone into rigor mortis yet:
Paul Trinder, who awoke to see the body at the end of his row, last week described the journey as “deeply disturbing”, and complained that the airline dismissed his concerns by telling him to “get over it”.”
Excuse me? "Get over it"? Hm . . . I smell a lawsuit brewing . . .
"“She kept slipping under the seatbelt and moving about with the motion of the plane.
The woman’s daughter and son-in-law arrived soon after and began grieving. Trinder said: “It was terrifying.
I put my earplugs in but couldn’t get away from the fact that there was a woman wailing at the top of her voice just yards away. It was a really intense, primal sound."
Putrification in-flight
It appears that this corpse was not served chilled, and we know that decomposition quickly begins right after rigor mortis sets-in. Oh, and lets not foorget that dead people void their bowels:
"He became particularly concerned about the state of the body. “When you have a decaying body on a plane at room temperature for more than five hours there are significant health and safety risks,” he said."
Getting tied-up in First Class
This is not the first time that a passenger has been tied-up in first class, it hapens to live passengers too.Marcelle Becker, a Beverly Hills socialite who traveled first-class with her 8-pound Maltese. The dog got loose in the first-class cabin and when flight attendants tried to Fido back into its carrier, Becker became so unruly that the captain ended-up tying her to her seat with dogs leash!
