We’ve often complained after a long flight that “economy air travel is just death”, but never realized that the death we were craving would have seen us upgraded to first class.

So goes the story of disgruntled passenger Paul Trinder, who awoke on his British Airways flight between Delhi and London to discover a corpse sitting in the first class cabin beside him.

An elderly woman who passed away not long after take-off had been carried to the front of the plane by quick-thinking cabin crew. Paul awoke to see the woman’s body being strapped into one of the £3,000 seats, wedged with pillows to prevent turbulent slippage.

As anyone in a similar situation would be, Paul was affected by the tragic situation:

“… the relatives were allowed to sit in First Class and spent the next five hours wailing and weeping. When I complained, I was told to ‘get over it’. I was also told BA’s corpse policy would remain ‘unless I’ve got any better ideas’. In future, if I have a choice of airlines on a particular route I’ll choose anyone but BA.”

He’s right. What the world needs is perspective. This corpse ruined his trip – the nerve! The dead don’t deserve champagne, stationery and complimentary slippers.

On an unrelated note, I was meant to fly into Heathrow last week with BA. But he was like “I ain’t gettin’ on no plane, fool.”

BA upgrades corpse [The Register]