A dream vacation quickly turned into a nightmare for an Australian couple after a fellow passenger died suddenly on their long-haul flight—leaving them forced to sit beside the corpse for hours with little assistance from the airline.

Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin were en route from Melbourne, Australia, to Venice, Italy, when the tragic incident unfolded aboard their Qatar Airways flight. Shortly after using the lavatory, the woman seated next to them collapsed in the aisle, prompting cabin crew to rush to her aid. Despite their efforts, she could not be revived.

The couple, still in shock, say their ordeal was only made worse by what happened next. With no way to move the body to another section of the aircraft, crew members wrapped the deceased woman in blankets and left her in a seat next to them for the remaining four hours of the flight to Doha.

“They went to try and move her, they brought this chair down… and they put her in the chair and tried to wheel her up towards business class,” Mitchell recalled. “But she was quite a large lady, and they couldn’t get her through the aisle.”

Instead, the crew repositioned the body nearby, asking Mitchell and Jennifer to shift over but not offering to move them away. At one point, blankets were removed to check on the deceased, exposing her face—an experience Mitchell described as traumatizing.

After landing in Doha, the couple says they were made to remain on board while police and paramedics attended to the situation.

“I can’t believe they told us to stay,” Mitchell said. “It wasn’t nice.”

Jennifer, a nervous flyer, was shaken by the experience. “I was pretty shocked. I said, ‘Are they going to put her there?’” she recalled.

Even more frustrating for the couple is that no one from Qatar Airways has reached out to offer support, counseling, or even an apology for the distressing experience.

“They have a duty of care toward their customers,” Mitchell said. “We should be contacted to make sure we’re alright.”

Following media reports, both Qatar Airways and Qantas, the airline through which the couple booked their trip, responded.

Qantas stated that all in-flight incidents are handled by the operating airline, in this case, Qatar Airways.

Meanwhile, a Qatar Airways spokesperson issued a statement: “First and foremost, our thoughts are with the family of the passenger who sadly passed away on board our flight. We apologize 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.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)