Summary
A couple on a Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne to Doha was forced to sit next to a deceased passenger for four hours after she collapsed and died mid-flight.
The flight crew moved the woman’s body to an empty seat beside them and denied their request to change seats.
Qatar Airways apologized but did not offer the couple support after the incident.
The couple, en route to Venice, criticized the airline’s handling of the situation but are trying to continue their trip despite the distressing experience.
And, as an aside, one of my “favorite” flight stories:
Was flying into DFW for a connection to get home. About an hour before we landed, the flight attendants got up to do their usual credit card schpiel but cut off partway through and rushed to the back. Everyone around me turned around to look. I… went back to my book.
A few minutes later they actually do an “Is anyone a doctor” call. Then ten or so minutes later they talk about how when we land everyone needs to stay seated while a passenger is removed from the flight. And then… they got back on the intercom to say that we should ignore that request and deplane normally.
I meant to check what said passenger died of (even if the medical emergency was under control they would have wanted to get them off ASAP for liability reasons) but it had snowed three states over so DFW was already a refugee camp at 6 PM as every single flight was cancelled or delayed. By the time I got home (three days later…) I was already too lazy to check exactly when we landed and so forth.