An Australian couple have opened up about a “traumatic” Qatar Airways flight after a dead body was placed next to them. Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin were travelling to Venice when a woman who had died in the aisle beside them during the flight from Melbourne to Doha, the couple told Australia’s Channel 9.
They explained that the flight’s cabin crew placed the woman’s corpse, covered in blankets, next to Mr Ring for the remaining four hours of the flight. The cabin crew did not offer to move Mr Ring away from the corpse, despite there being empty seats.
Speaking to Channel Nine’s Current Affair programme, Mr Ring shared that when the woman collapsed, the staff had responded “in no time”, but that “unfortunately the lady couldn’t be saved, which was pretty heart-breaking to watch”.
The cabin crew had tried to move her body towards business class, according to Mr Ring, “but she was quite a large lady and they couldn’t get her through the aisle”.
The crew then noticed there were seats available beside him. “They said, ‘Can you move over please?’ and I just said, ‘Yes no problem’.
“Then they placed the lady in the chair I was in.”
Mr Ring said he had not been given the option to move seats by cabin crew, although Ms Colin was able to move to an empty seat nearby. When the plane landed four hours later, passengers remained on the plane as medical staff and police came on board.
When ambulance officers were attending to the woman, they had pulled the blankets off her and Mr Ring had seen her face. The couple said there needed to be a “duty of care” for customers and staff.
“We should be contacted to make sure, do you need some support, do you need some counselling?”
Ms Colin called the experience “traumatic” and said: “We totally understand that we can’t hold the airline responsible for the poor lady’s death, but there has to be a protocol to look after the customers on board.”
The couple also said they had not been contacted by Qatar Airlines or Qantas, the airline through which they booked the flight.
In a statement, Qatar Airways said: “First and foremost our thoughts are with the family of the passenger who sadly passed away on board our flight.
“We apologise for any inconvenience or distress this incident may have caused, and are in the process of contacting passengers in line with our policies and procedures.”
A Qantas spokesperson said: “The process for handling incidents onboard an aircraft like this is managed by the operating airline, which in this case is Qatar Airways.”