I heard this story on NPR Morning Edition this morning. Paul Trinder, a businessman from Brackley, Northamptonshire had a corpse of a woman, in his adjacent first class seat, on a flight from Delhi to Heathrow.

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.
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”.

While I have the same advice for Mr. Trinder, he does bring up a good point.

“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.

And that responsiblity falls on the airlines.

Singapore Airlines has introduced “corpse cupboards” on its Airbus 340-500 aircraft. Cabin crews use the locker if there is no empty row of seats to place a corpse.

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