The upcoming BBC documentary A Very British Airline has revealed the protocol for a very grey area of air travel, with the lead cabin crew of British Airways being told to put the bodies of dead passengers in first-class seats rather than in planes’ restrooms.
In the documentary, the lead trainer details to the cabin crew the course of action they must take if a passenger dies during a flight. The official policy of BA forbids the cabin crew from simply taking a dead passenger and propping them in a toilet away from the other, considerably more alive passengers, instead bumping up the deceased to a first-class seat (not that they’d get to enjoy the perks of it) in order to not “disrespect” them, and to ensure their body wouldn’t cause a safety hazard upon landing.
The trainer said: “You cannot put a dead passenger in the toilet. It’s not respectful and it’s not strapped in for landing.
“If they slid off the toilet, they would end up on the floor. You would have to take the aircraft apart to get that person out. Imagine putting someone in the aircraft toilet?”
Unfortunately for those who died mid-flight prior to BA’s new policy, the airline’s old method was far less professional. Speaking of the previous protocol British Airways followed in the unlikely event of a passenger’s death, the trainer said: “[We used to] give them a vodka and tonic, a Daily Mail and eye-shades and they were like, they’re fine. We don’t do that.
“In a nice, easy world – where someone dying on an aircraft isn’t – you put them back on seats. I know a crew member who had to sit next to someone who passed away and for the rest of the flight.
“All of this is such a horrible topic.”
Y’know what’s even more horrible? Giving your dead passengers a copy of the Daily Mail. The dead don’t deserve that.
