LONDON: Airlines which fail to treat the bodies of passengers who die on board ‘with respect’ will be forced to adopt a new code of practice which protects the dignity of the dead.

Up to 1,000 people a year die on commercial flights, mainly from heart attacks, but also from deep-vein thrombosis.

But the UK Aviation Health Institute (AHI) has accused airlines of ‘serious deficiencies’ in handling corpses, with cabin crew sometimes failing to show even basic sympathy for relatives.

The AHI report, extracts of which have been shown to The Observer newspaper in London, found examples where airlines had:

* Put a body in a toilet cubicle for the duration of the flight;

* Lain a body on the in-flight kitchen floor;

* Failed to offer condolences to bereaved relatives — while speaking to the media;

* Left a body uncovered in its seat near other passengers.

The AHI report points out that the only action airlines are legally obliged to take is for the captain to register the death in writing.

AHI director Farrol Kahn said: “You would think it was absolutely basic that staff would be utterly respectful to the body of the passenger who dies and comforting to any relatives or friends travelling with them on the plane or waiting in arrivals, but this often just does not happen.”

British Airways has to deal with five to 10 deaths on board every year. Kahn said he had received complaints from relatives and other travellers who felt BA had not dealt well with passengers as they fell ill or died.

One passenger reported how staff ‘seemed helpless’ when a passenger collapsed on a Concorde flight and, despite the fact that the man had become incontinent and vomited, the plane did not divert to the nearest landing strip or have anywhere to isolate the body, causing distress to the remaining passengers.

A spokesman said the airline tried to be as sensitive and flexible as possible ‘in the most difficult circumstances’ when someone died on board.

And while the AHI said it was standard practice to put bodies in the toilet cubicle on many airlines, this was banned at BA because ‘it can develop rigour mortis and you have to dismantle the cubicle to get it out’.—Dawn/The Observer News Service.