British Airways, "Get over it".

[Disney Doll]

If the passenger seated next to the body indicated that he was disturbed, then that should be enough for the airline. I think that most people in that same circumstance would be disturbed. For an airline to expect any passenger, let alone one that is shelling out that much $$$ to sit beside a dead body and not be compensated is complete arrogance. I would be disturbed if the first class seat that I paid 75K miles for adjoined a dead body en route to Hawaii and would expect that my miles at least be redeposited in my account.

I wouldn't expect a thing. I consider this one of those "you-know-what happens" kinds of things. If I worked for the airline, and a passenger expressed a huge amount of distress or concern, I'd probably do what you suggested, just to shut them up. But then, when the other passengers foudn out about it, they'd all be expressing a huge amount of distress and convcern, so I guess there'd be a lot of refunding going on.

 

[froglady]

Interestingly, I will be transporting my mother's ashes by plane for burial in May. Should the nearby passengers be compensated for the "ick" factor?

And what about being stuck on a flight next to a vomiting, diarrheal infant? That is certainly more of an inconvenience (and more of a health risk) than a dead person! If the dead person had an airborne contagious disease, he/she is no longer exhaling germs. If it is spread by contact, they aren't likely to be touching you.

Since the seats in first class recline a lot further than those in coach, I can understand placing the corpse there...unless you want to be the one breaking bones if rigor sets in at the wrong time. It would also be harder to keep a body from lolling around if in a seated, upright position.

Was the airline supposed to stop in some strange (to the family) country and tell them to "get over it and get yourself and your dead parent some transportation home" rather than inconvenience the few passengers in first class?

I chose NOT to let my mother fly last September because of these very concerns, but it was heartbreaking for both of us.

 

[ducklite]

Should she have gotten on the plane?

Boy that is a different question. I deal with life and death issues every day at work. Many people are desperately ill and only want to be able to die at home. It is the last hope of many patients. THey accept the death, but many desperatly want to get home.

An air ambulance is a nice flippant answer, but a person without major resources would find this price prohibitive . I hope folks aren't deluding themselves to think insurance will cover any of the cost.

Forbid a terminally ill person from boarding a plane because she might die ?Wow. It sounds essentially like a "last dying wish" - y'all really would refuse someone this because of the chance you may get creeped out or be inconvinienced????

There's a difference between going home to die, and waiting until you are pretty much dead to do so. It wasn't like the woman had been perfectly healthy one day and dying the next. She shouldn't have waited until death was imminant to travel. And the airline shouldn't have allowed someone so obviously near death to board.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

And if your mother wanted to get to her home town, state or country to die, and the only way to get her there was to fly, would you deny her that???

First of all, my mother lives 90 minutes from her home town, so it wouldn't be an issue. Second, if my mother were very elderly and wanted to die in her "homeland" I would arrange for her to go there prior to being in the state that woman was in--I wouldn't wait until her death was hours to days away.

You know, I am amazed at several things I have seen posted on this thread:

1. What a warped sense of self-entitlement some people have.."oh my gooodness, this is such an inconvenience for me"

I don't see it as entitlement. I see it as common sense. Deny one person boarding or disrupt a plane with 300 passengers. Doesn't seem like rocket scinece to figure out. It's the same reason they deny boarding to pregnant women and people with various diseases.

2. "People who have some issue, disability, health status etc. that may inconvenience me shouldn't be allowed to circulate within my orbit, where they might inconvenience me. Of course, if someone tries to do the same to me, I will cry discrimination". Actually, I guess this is actually very much so like #1.

There's a big difference between a person with a disability, even a vent-dependent person who is in other-wise good health, and someone who is literally dying.

3. How ridiculous people are about dead people. For God's they're dead. They aren't going to hurt you, they aren't going to wake up and eat your brain like some sort of zombie, they aren't going to do anything other than lie there. What if a dead person was next to a child? It's a good way for a child to learn about death as a natural part of life so they don't grow up to fear it. After all, we are all going to do it someday.

Your opinion. I don't work in the medical field. I'm not around dead people all the time. And I prefer to not be around them--at least until they've been embalmed. It really skeeves me.

People amaze me every day, and as a nurse, you would think I'd be used to it by now.

I'm NOT a nurse. One of the reasons is that the thought of a lot of things medical people deal with makes me want to vomit. I'm the average Joe traveler, and the thought of having a corpse next to me for a number of hours, well, that just skeeves me beyond belief. Had I been that man, I would have probably needed years of therapy to get over it.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

I've flown some airlines that don't have that late-term pregnancy rule, because I have sat next to, and felt very sorry for, some obviously pregnant women who were mashed into those little airplane seats.

Do remember your statement when one of your loved ones wants to fly and has an issue that is deemed "Unaccaptable" to an airline?

This is slippery slope. Airlines will be denying flights to smokers (the smell on their clothing annoys other passengers), kids with peanut allergies (what if one of the snacks we serve contains a peanut product we don't know about?), fat people (sorry...weight limits), middle eastern people...regular people, not those on any terrorist list (no further explanation necessary)...do you see what I am getting at?

You are comparing apples to oranges. I don't know of a single carrier who will allow late term pregnant women to fly. I don't know of a single carrier who won't allow smokers and peanut allergic people to fly. I do'nt know of a single carrier who won't allow COS to fly (although the will make them purcahse a second seat which is only fair. Any airline that has denied boarding to a person based on thier ethnicity has lived to regret it. (I dealt with an issue with a co-worker yesterday who was discriminated against by one of our vendors due his ethnic background. I will make sure that either that vendors employee is fired, or I will change vendors.)

But a lot of carriers will not board an obviously very ill person, regardless of whether they are dying or just really ill. It's common sense.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

How so?

What if something happens to the ventilator in flight? If they are vent-dependent, they are also likely to die.

Not neccessarily. You can hand vent a person until the plane can land and they can be taken to a hospital. A person who is dying due to organ failure and a person who has an equipment malfunction that can be substituted with a manual proceedure are two different things. I'm sure that the several vent-dependent DIS board posters will agree.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

And they would have faced a discrimination lawsuit had they said the woman couldn't fly.

Human nature these days is such that some people will sue for anything they think they can.

Kind of a sad commentary on human nature.

They have the right to deny boarding to someone who is medically unfit to fly. If a lawsuit was brought, it wouldn't be won.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

I'm not sure I'd be too thrilled to have my dead family member dumped off at the next stop in a strange city or country. If the elderly woman was going home to die, and died en route, get her home.

She should have been off-loaded and had her body taken to a funeral home to be properly prepared for further travel, rather than be strapped into a seat in a manner that she continued to slide out onto the floor--that to me is not at all respectful, and far more traumatic to the family.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

Interestingly, I will be transporting my mother's ashes by plane for burial in May. Should the nearby passengers be compensated for the "ick" factor?

I speak only for myself, but I'm not "icked" by the thought of ashes in a proper container being near me.

And what about being stuck on a flight next to a vomiting, diarrheal infant? That is certainly more of an inconvenience (and more of a health risk) than a dead person! If the dead person had an airborne contagious disease, he/she is no longer exhaling germs. If it is spread by contact, they aren't likely to be touching you.

Most bodies "leak" various "stuff" after death, so there's just as much of a health risk.

Since the seats in first class recline a lot further than those in coach, I can understand placing the corpse there...unless you want to be the one breaking bones if rigor sets in at the wrong time. It would also be harder to keep a body from lolling around if in a seated, upright position.

Actually the seats in most first class (as opposed to upper class) don't recline any more than a coach seat. They are wider and have more room between the seats, giving the perception of a further recline. The way the story reads, the body kept slipping out of the seat onto the floor.

Was the airline supposed to stop in some strange (to the family) country and tell them to "get over it and get yourself and your dead parent some transportation home" rather than inconvenience the few passengers in first class?

The plane should have landed and off-loaded the body so it could be properly transported for burial--in a coffin--as opposed to sliding out of the seat onto the floor several times.

Anne

 

[DawnCt1]

The plane should have landed and off-loaded the body so it could be properly transported for burial--in a coffin--as opposed to sliding out of the seat onto the floor several times.

Anne

The death occurred during a transatlantic flight so apparently it couldn't land. Given the fact that they had to put the body "somewhere", and they chose first class, they should have been an effort to satisfy those customers who felt uncomfortable with their nearby "passenger". A free first class ticket on their next flight would have been a satifactory settlement.

 

[ducklite]

The death occurred during a transatlantic flight so apparently it couldn't land. Given the fact that they had to put the body "somewhere", and they chose first class, they should have been an effort to satisfy those customers who felt uncomfortable with their nearby "passenger". A free first class ticket on their next flight would have been a satifactory settlement.

I'm not so sure why the body was moved to begin with. Why wasn't it just kept in the seat it was assigned and covered with a blanket?

Anne

 

[DawnCt1]

I'm not so sure why the body was moved to begin with. Why wasn't it just kept in the seat it was assigned and covered with a blanket?

Anne

That's another good question.

 

[bicker]

I don't see it as entitlement. I see it as common sense.

Well, you now know that that's not the case. (If it was "common" sense, then there wouldn't be a 8 page discussion thread about it.) Please accept that it is your personal "sense", and as such other perspectives are equally legitimate. I think airlines can get into big trouble making medical decisions -- they must defer to the passenger's own physician. While airlines can say, "Let's contact your doctor to get you cleared to fly tonight," if the doctor says "go" then the airline shouldn't presume to countermand that. In this case, we don't know what the crew saw or didn't see, asked or didn't ask, before take-off. Without evidence to the contrary, you should give the airline the benefit of the doubt that they took reasonable steps in this case, i.e., that either they didn't note anything that would indicate an obvious reason to deny boarding, and/or they were countermanded by a doctor.

 

[bicker]

I'm not so sure why the body was moved to begin with. Why wasn't it just kept in the seat it was assigned and covered with a blanket?

Two reasonable explanations were provided earlier in the thread.

 

[ducklite]

Well, you now know that that's not the case. (If it was "common" sense, then there wouldn't be a 8 page discussion thread about it.) Please accept that it is your personal "sense", and as such other perspectives are equally legitimate. I think airlines can get into big trouble making medical decisions -- they must defer to the passenger's own physician. While airlines can say, "Let's contact your doctor to get you cleared to fly tonight," if the doctor says "go" then the airline shouldn't presume to countermand that. In this case, we don't know what the crew saw or didn't see, asked or didn't ask, before take-off. Without evidence to the contrary, you should give the airline the benefit of the doubt that they took reasonable steps in this case, i.e., that either they didn't note anything that would indicate an obvious reason to deny boarding, and/or they were countermanded by a doctor.

Or the almighty dollar over ruled common sense, which is very likely what happened.

Anne

 

[bicker]

I think that's a pretty narrow way of looking at it. Reasonable people do disagree. "Common" sense is, 99% of the time, a silly myth.

 

[ducklite]

I think that's a pretty narrow way of looking at it. Reasonable people do disagree. "Common" sense is, 99% of the time, a silly myth.

OK, look at it this way. BA allowed a business decision to board a passenger in obvious physical distress that has brought about scads of criticism, considering that the result of their decision and their consequential action has made a percentage of people think about flying with them in the future lest they run into a similar situation.

A little empathy by BA towards the passenger who had to endure a trip next to a corpse would have gone a very long way. Had they done the right thing and refunded his ticket, this never would have made the news. The potential revenue loss for the carrier in either lost passengers or defending a lawsuit or both is far higher than the cost of a ticket.

Bottom line, along the way in this situation they have made one or a series of poor business decisions which has the potential for a large amount of backlash and negative impact.

Anne

 

[arminnie]

Dead bodies - this can be a very real issue in many Asian cultures.

When I lived in California part of the required disclosure process when selling a home dealt with a death occuring in a residence.

Because this was a major negative factor for a significant percentage of the population, it was illegal NOT to disclose that a death had taken place in a home that was for sale. NOT disclosing such a death was grounds for a major lawsuit.

The only exception was that you were not allowed to disclose if the death was from AIDS. But the death itself did have to be disclosed.

I don't know the cultural heritage of the person who was offended by the dead body next to him, but I do recognize that other cultures often have very different belief systems. Just because something doesn't bother me doesn't mean that it might be extremely offensive to someone else.

 

[6_Time_Momma]

There's a difference between going home to die, and waiting until you are pretty much dead to do so. It wasn't like the woman had been perfectly healthy one day and dying the next. She shouldn't have waited until death was imminant to travel. And the airline shouldn't have allowed someone so obviously near death to board.

Anne

You keep saying her death was "immenent" like the doctors told her it would be a matter of hours when she decided to board the plane. How do you know this? Did an article state that doctors told her her death would be within hours? Because believe it or not, you don't know. The dying process can take hours, days, weeks or even months. A person can look like they will live three or four more weeks and then die the next day and people can looke like they'll die in a day and be alive a week later. Just becuase she was in poor health does not mean that she was in any more danger of the flight causing her death than the average joe.

And for all you know, perhaps she was healthy one day and a week or two later, in poor health and going home to die due to a stroke.

I completely disagree that someone should be denied admittance on a flight because the crew think ssomeone looks in poor health. I think an awful lot of people would be disqualified.

 

[bicker]

A little empathy by BA towards the passenger who had to endure a trip next to a corpse would have gone a very long way.

As far as we know, the passenger could just be a complainer, an exploiter, and the BA folks there talking with the passenger could have noted that. As I noted earlier, I do agree they should have given the passenger a voucher, for say $300 off the passenger's next flight with BA, but other than that, BA might just have been rewarding someone for something dishonest, and that would be morally reprehensible.