BA sat corpse in first class

I came across this story in an edition of the Times from 2007.

Basically, this guy awoke to find the staff manouevring into the seat next to him the body of a little old lady who had died shortly after take off.

Leaving aside the self-pitying reaction of the passenger–”I’m paying £3,000 for this“–parts of the story struck me as falling into the category of ’stuff you’d really rather not think about’.

A spokesman said: “When a customer passes away on board it is always difficult and we apologise for any distress caused.” [emphasis added]

They make it sound like a pretty regular occurrence, even though the BA man goes on to say that there are only 10 deaths per year out of 26m passengers.

But then why has Singapore Airlines introduced “corpse cupboards” on its Airbus 340-500 aircraft, especially when we are told that “Cabin crews use the locker if there is no empty row of seats to place a corpse.” Presumably because they’re already full of bodies…

So if you wake up and find Henry Kissinger next to you, give him a discreet prod and check that he’s still breathing.