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Well, the method can only be used once 
BA apologises for using first class seats to store corpses
Martin Wainwright
Monday March 19, 2007
The Guardian
British Airways has apologised to its most lucrative customers after twice using first class cabins in aircraft as temporary morgues in the last six months.
The bodies of elderly passengers who died in cheaper and fully occupied sections of planes during the flights were transferred to empty seats in first class because of a lack of space to store them.
Natural sympathy among other passengers was tempered by concerns about health in cramped conditions on long flights and the presence of relatives of the victims who were overcome with distress. Such incidents are very rare on commercial flights but many airlines, including BA, appear to have only makeshift strategies for dealing with them.
BA apologises for using first class seats to store corpses
Martin Wainwright
Monday March 19, 2007
The Guardian
British Airways has apologised to its most lucrative customers after twice using first class cabins in aircraft as temporary morgues in the last six months.
The bodies of elderly passengers who died in cheaper and fully occupied sections of planes during the flights were transferred to empty seats in first class because of a lack of space to store them.
Natural sympathy among other passengers was tempered by concerns about health in cramped conditions on long flights and the presence of relatives of the victims who were overcome with distress. Such incidents are very rare on commercial flights but many airlines, including BA, appear to have only makeshift strategies for dealing with them.
Article continues
Travellers on a nine-hour overnight flight to Heathrow from Delhi last week were given an apology by the airline for any distress suffered after an elderly woman died in the economy section some three hours into the flight. Her body was moved as discreetly as practicable from the full cabin, a procedure followed in November when a retired American traveller died halfway through a six-hour flight from London to Boston. His body was covered with a blanket in a reclining seat in first class, which was 20% empty.
The latest incident saw the woman's body propped with pillows and strapped in with a seatbelt, while her daughter sat beside her, grieving and in tears for much of the remainder of the flight. Other first class passengers in the Boeing 747 jumbo said that there appeared to be no other system to deal with the tragedy, which happens an average of 10 times a year on BA flights.
The passenger nearest to the seat chosen as the temporary morgue, a BA gold card businessman who logs some 200,000 flying miles a year, said that it had not been made clear what was going on. He initially thought that the woman had been taken ill and was shocked when he had to ask for information and was told of the death.
The woman's daughter had been wailing in distress, leaving the £3,000-plus passengers in the cabin anxious and helpless, he said. On arrival at Heathrow, everyone in first class was also kept on board for an hour and some interviewed by police, until a coroner gave the all clear for them to disembark. He complained but was told that there would be no compensation, he said.
The trans-Atlantic incident prompted stiff upper lips from most passengers in the Boeing 777's 14-seat first class cabin, where the dead man's wife was given a "buddy seat" to accompany the body for the rest of the flight. One of them, also American, said that she had tried to concentrate on Mission Impossible III, the inflight film, while others "were very British about it, simply not acknowledging that there was anything wrong."
British Airways said that there had been no room to rest the passenger's body on the Delhi flight, because all seats were taken.
A spokesman said that there were almost inevitably problems with such a rare event among 36 million passengers carried by the airline every year.
"When a customer passes away on board it is always difficult and we apologise for any distress caused," he said. Most other airlines also use seats after a death, or occasionally lockers altered into temporary cupboards.
Martin Wainwright
Monday March 19, 2007
The Guardian
British Airways has apologised to its most lucrative customers after twice using first class cabins in aircraft as temporary morgues in the last six months.
The bodies of elderly passengers who died in cheaper and fully occupied sections of planes during the flights were transferred to empty seats in first class because of a lack of space to store them.
Natural sympathy among other passengers was tempered by concerns about health in cramped conditions on long flights and the presence of relatives of the victims who were overcome with distress. Such incidents are very rare on commercial flights but many airlines, including BA, appear to have only makeshift strategies for dealing with them.
BA apologises for using first class seats to store corpses
Martin Wainwright
Monday March 19, 2007
The Guardian
British Airways has apologised to its most lucrative customers after twice using first class cabins in aircraft as temporary morgues in the last six months.
The bodies of elderly passengers who died in cheaper and fully occupied sections of planes during the flights were transferred to empty seats in first class because of a lack of space to store them.
Natural sympathy among other passengers was tempered by concerns about health in cramped conditions on long flights and the presence of relatives of the victims who were overcome with distress. Such incidents are very rare on commercial flights but many airlines, including BA, appear to have only makeshift strategies for dealing with them.
Article continues
Travellers on a nine-hour overnight flight to Heathrow from Delhi last week were given an apology by the airline for any distress suffered after an elderly woman died in the economy section some three hours into the flight. Her body was moved as discreetly as practicable from the full cabin, a procedure followed in November when a retired American traveller died halfway through a six-hour flight from London to Boston. His body was covered with a blanket in a reclining seat in first class, which was 20% empty.
The latest incident saw the woman's body propped with pillows and strapped in with a seatbelt, while her daughter sat beside her, grieving and in tears for much of the remainder of the flight. Other first class passengers in the Boeing 747 jumbo said that there appeared to be no other system to deal with the tragedy, which happens an average of 10 times a year on BA flights.
The passenger nearest to the seat chosen as the temporary morgue, a BA gold card businessman who logs some 200,000 flying miles a year, said that it had not been made clear what was going on. He initially thought that the woman had been taken ill and was shocked when he had to ask for information and was told of the death.
The woman's daughter had been wailing in distress, leaving the £3,000-plus passengers in the cabin anxious and helpless, he said. On arrival at Heathrow, everyone in first class was also kept on board for an hour and some interviewed by police, until a coroner gave the all clear for them to disembark. He complained but was told that there would be no compensation, he said.
The trans-Atlantic incident prompted stiff upper lips from most passengers in the Boeing 777's 14-seat first class cabin, where the dead man's wife was given a "buddy seat" to accompany the body for the rest of the flight. One of them, also American, said that she had tried to concentrate on Mission Impossible III, the inflight film, while others "were very British about it, simply not acknowledging that there was anything wrong."
British Airways said that there had been no room to rest the passenger's body on the Delhi flight, because all seats were taken.
A spokesman said that there were almost inevitably problems with such a rare event among 36 million passengers carried by the airline every year.
"When a customer passes away on board it is always difficult and we apologise for any distress caused," he said. Most other airlines also use seats after a death, or occasionally lockers altered into temporary cupboards.
Why did you have to say that ? Now I can't get such a scene out of my head.
...and remember to chew the peanuts before swallowing them.
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