British Airways complaint goes viral after customer bemoans that passenger’s death led to flight delays

An airline passenger’s complaint has gone viral after they claimed that someone died on their British Airways flight. However, it’s their complaint that the flight was delayed because of the medical emergency that has left people “gobsmacked”.

The British Airways customer originally posted the complaint about their December flight to the public Facebook page, “British Airways Complaints Advice,” which was then reposted by a separate user to the airline internet forum, FlyerTalk, with the caption: “Unbelievable Facebook Post”.

When Twitter user Andy Monks came across the post on FlyerTalk, he “was left gobsmacked” by the complaint and reposted it to Twitter on Monday, where it’s since been viewed more than 56,000 times. “This is copy and paste of a BA passenger’s complaint that some posted on Flyertalk…the complainer has posted on Facebook group…thoughts?” he captioned the tweet. “I was left gobsmacked…”

In the original post, the British Airways passenger shared that they were flying from Jamaica to London on 21 December when the incident took place. “During a flight, a passenger directly to [sic] rows behind us, passed away in the most horrific way, giving us the most traumatic experience during a flight,” they began their complaint.

The passenger went on to explain how the flight was delayed for three hours. They were travelling with five children and their six-months-pregnant sister, who were all “very tired, frustrated and hungry” throughout the flight.

About three and a half hours before the plane was set to land in the UK, the passenger claimed that they were woken up by a “commotion” from the airline staff and a passenger sitting two rows behind them “losing consciousness”.

“The passenger that was losing consciousness was then placed in the aisle beside us in order to perform resuscitation CPR and attempt to save her life; the entire experience went on for over an hour,” they wrote. “I’ve never in my life witnessed someone being shocked or having CPR performed and never would’ve expected that to happened [sic] on flight returning home.”

The British Airways customer claimed that they have been “extremely sad” and “traumatised” since the incident occurred, and their family has had “many sleepless nights” as a result.

“Naturally, during the course of this experience, it meant or [sic] flight services were halted and aside from the initial meal, drinks and flight mills were discontinued, so we did not receive a thorough flight experience that we had paid for,” they added.

In the post, the passenger claimed they issued the complaint with British Airways in January and haven’t heard a response since 3 February, apart from a “generic” reply saying they’re looking into the complaint. “I would like to hear from British Airways, what you plan to do in order to compensate your passengers that had to deal with this ordeal,” they concluded.

While the passenger may have not received a response from British Airways about their complaint, the post has generated much discussion on Twitter. People are now sharing their shock that the customer would complain about their flight, considering the alleged incident that occurred.

“This is the world we live in,” tweeted one person in response.

“Someone is trying to win Karen of the year,” another person said.

“All I can see in that text is ‘me me me me me me me…me & me,’” wrote someone else.

Flight attendants also shared similar experiences of dealing with demanding passengers, like one user who said: “I have been in that position performing CPR on a flight as crew! You go into a mode of it’s all about that individual and saving their life.  I am outraged by this and the lack of empathy some people have! Words fail me…”

“Thank god I’m not a flight attendant anymore!” another person said. “Passenger complained I didn’t get her cup of tea in time because I was too busy attending to a lady having a seizure.”

In a statement to The Independent, a spokesperson for British Airways said: “Safety is always our highest priority and our crew colleagues were focused on providing first-aid.”

The rep added that British Airways staff “are highly trained to deal with a range of situations including medical emergencies” and they “worked hard to continue the onboard service as planned, while managing a customer medical incident.”

Recently, another flight passenger went viral when they asked the AI chatbot ChatGPT to write a “polite but firm” email after their flight was delayed by more than six hours. A woman named Cherie Luo shared in an Instagram video that she asked the AI bot to write a “polite but passively aggressive and firm email to an airline”.

The email written by ChatGPT began: “I am writing to express my extreme frustration and disappointment with the experience I had on my recent flight with your airline.”

“Firstly, my flight was significantly delayed by six hours with no updates or communication from your staff while we were at the airport,” it wrote. “This caused a great deal of inconvenience and stress for myself and my fellow travellers as we were left in the dark about what was going on and when we would be able to leave.”

“I understand delays can happen due to unforeseen circumstances but the lack of communication and failure to provide access to the lounges promised is completely unacceptable.”