Biz Class Passenger Not Alive To Enjoy Upgrade to First

[Matt Molnar]

From the Daily Mail:

BA passengers share first class cabin with dead traveller
by RAY MASSEY Last updated at 11:41am on 5th December 2006

First Class travellers on a British Airways transatlantic flight were horrified when they were forced to sit next to a dead body for three hours.

The elderly passenger had died of a heart attack just minutes earlier and was carried into their cabin to continue the journey to America.

It followed a mid air drama in which a doctor and crew lost a 35 minute battle to resuscitate the man after he suffered a cardiac arrest in business class where he was travelling with his wife.

[Ari707]

there was a new brief in the back of a recient Airlines about that some airlines are now adding a body size fridge to some of their long haul aircraft fior this reason!

[Nonstop2AUH]

Kind of sad but I guess First was the only place there might have been room for the poor fellow's body. Cruise ships have long carried coffins aboard for this purpose, and with very long haul flight times now approximating the number of hours many cruise ships spend at sea between ports (e.g. 12-16 hours), putting some sort of facility for this aboard aircraft sounds like a reasonable idea. The FA unions won't like it much, but from what I've seen, the crew rest bunks on some aircraft do kind of look like a morgue...

[Matt Molnar]

Something similar happened on a jetBlue flight my friend was working a few months ago. An old woman traveling with her son, I think from one of the islands to JFK. Apparently she had some kind of long term illness, as the son was carrying a Do Not Resuscitate order for her. jetBlue policy (or perhaps some law?) dictates that DNRs be ignored during flights, so the crew and a doctor on board gave her CPR. Unfortunately she died anyway. Of course on jetBlue there's no room for cadaver storage, so the dead woman sat in her original seat with the rest of the passengers. :?

[hiss srq]

It happens more often than you think. In the air ambulance biz I was in for but a few short months we had two die on board at that company. And than at SRQ a man passed on in his seat during boarding of a FL 717 for IND last year.

[emshighway]

as the son was carrying a Do Not Resuscitate order for her. jetBlue policy (or perhaps some law?) dictates that DNRs be ignored during flights, so the crew and a doctor on board gave her CPR. Unfortunately she died anyway.

There are specific rules on DNRs. I know with NYC EMS the DNR has to be the original and have specific date ranges. Any problems and we had to ignore them.