Issue #50, March 23, 2007

THE WOMAN WHO GOT A FREE UPGRADE TO FIRST CLASS

By Dan Rattiner

You know how hard it is to get an airline upgrade to first class? You try at the gate. You’ve been abused. You want justice. The answer is always no. Well, now there is the report of an elderly woman on British Airways, who, on March 19, finally succeeded in doing something on an airplane that got her a free upgrade. She wins the prize. So there is hope. How did she do it?

Well, she died in economy. It was of natural causes. It happens every once in a while that somebody passes away quietly like this.

But at the time, the aircraft was in the air between New Delhi and London and there were three hours still to go.

Instead of diverting the aircraft, the airline gave the woman an upgrade. According to Paul Trinder, 54, a businessman flying first class, he was awakened during the flight by the sounds of several airline attendants strapping a new arrival into the first class seat next to his. He watched as they wedged her in, or tried to wedge her in, with pillows.

“It really didn’t work,” Trindler told the BBC at Heathrow Airport, after he gave them a call and asked them to come down. “We’d go through some turbulence and the body would slide off the seat. So they’d prop her up again.”

Sounds like an airborne sequel to Weekend With Bernie.

The BBC called the airline for comment, and they had none, but they did say that the death did happen on that flight, and, in addition to giving the dead woman the upgrade, they gave the person she was flying with an upgrade, so she, too, could enjoy the perks of First Class.

Trindler said the younger woman sat on the other side, mostly crying, which was quite understandable. The dead woman’s identity has not been made public, in response to the expressed wishes of the family.

Well, it’s been a terrible week for the airlines, mostly because of a computer glitch, personnel shortages and a terrible ice storm that hit the northeast. All of the above resulted in the continued pummeling of the customers, who had to endure more than 1,000 cancellations from Philadelphia to Boston and then tens of thousands of delays in addition to the cancellation of all flights on both Jet Blue and U. S. Airways last month each for several days due to coordination problems.

One passenger reported going through a remarkable four day ordeal for one single flight from here to there, with announcements throwing his departure time further and further into the future, when it was finally, at long last, boarded, sent out to the end of the runway for takeoff, and then called back to the gate because the plane just ahead of it in line was the last plane allowed out before the airport had to shut down on account of weather. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was now a further delay getting the few thousand yards back to the gate because a plane in their path became frozen to its spot on the runway. It took two further hours to finally get around it and back to the gate where he, the longest and most patient customer other than that elderly woman on British Airways, was told sorry, your flight is no longer delayed, it is cancelled.

And then, this past Monday, there was the simultaneous arrival in both Los Angeles and JFK, of two prototypes of the brand new jumbo superplanes built by Airbus. These giant planes will carry 555 passengers on two decks, one above the other. But there has already been a two year delay due to construction errors, and that has thrown the delivery date for commercial service forward two more years, so that the first flight on this plane will be in 2010, instead of, as previously announced, 2006.

Another 555 poor souls to undergo further pummelings sometime in the future, is what I say. Bring them in by the carloads. They’re probably camped out at the airport in Toulouse, France where the Airbus 380 is being manufactured, as we speak, waiting for the announcement.