18 August, 2007

Where in the world is Mummy?

Emirates Airline refuses to allow a passenger to carry onboard his dead mother's ashes for a NZ-UAE-UK flight, and then loses them by way of the Seychelles.

I guess that the pax didn't want to pay full fare for his mum too - or did the ashes pose a threat to aircraft security?

Read full story here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

or did the ashes pose a threat to aircraft security?

1. Security risk is more like it.
2. Incompetent baggage handlers.
3. Shame on you Emirates Airline.

Anonymous said...

Emirates Airline may delay the delivery of baggage, but they usually find it and hand it over.

To be fair, there is no way for the security folks to know what the ashes really are. I prefer the inconvenience of some passengers, such as the ones in this story, over the risk of someone carrying something with malicious intent.

secretdubai said...

They found them again, that's the main thing. Something like 10% of all baggage goes astray, but the vast majority of it is found later one.

Of course this isn't ideal, but it's better than nothing.

And while the ashes are obviously an emotional issue, I feel less bothered about them going astray compared to someone's holiday luggage with all their new bikinis and stuff. You don't get compensation for a ruined holiday. Or for a business executive who may have important samples and documents in his case whose luggage is lost when he has a really important meeting.

The most frustrating thing for me has been not allowed to carry on certain items by certain airlines (European ones can be really anal compared to Emirates, which is usually much more accommodating) when I know that the transit time is narrow and stuff that I urgently need for business will likely miss the connection. And sure enough it does. And there is never any compensation.

What I would like to see is perhaps some kind of "locked"/secure compartment for borderline items, that the air hostesses could control, preventing passengers from accessing them during the flight. I wouldn't even mind paying more. Things such as camera tripods, or for example this man's mother's ashes.

Anonymous said...

Secretdubai wrote:
And while the ashes are obviously an emotional issue, I feel less bothered about them going astray compared to someone's holiday luggage with all their new bikinis and stuff. You don't get compensation for a ruined holiday. Or for a business executive who may have important samples and documents in his case whose luggage is lost when he has a really important meeting.

I guess everybody has their own set of priorities and things that are important to them (bikinis, bodies, documents, ashes, etc)

The point at the end of the day is - why should passengers have to suffer for the loss of their baggage due to the careless attitude of airlines (or who ever is involved in baggage sorting)?

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