A horrified airline passenger had to sit in blood and diarrhea during a seven-hour flight and was then given wet wipes to clean it up after a previous traveler had a “bleed” in his seat.
Habib Battah was flying from Paris to Toronto on Air France when he noticed a peculiar smell coming from the footwell under his and his wife’s seats shortly after the plane took off.
“It smelled like manure,” he told CNN.
The couple took a Boeing 777 flight with their two cats, who sat in the footwell in front of the couple, each in a separate carriage. They move from Lebanon to the US, where journalist Battah starts working as a university lecturer for a short time.
Battah said, “It was our first time traveling with the cats, and I thought, ‘Oh gosh, they’ve had an accident, I’m so embarrassed.’
Habib Battah and his wife flew in the footwell with their two cats. When he noticed that the stains had penetrated into the container, he used a whole pack of wet wipes to clean it
Battah tweeted about the ordeal a day after the incident. Due to the overcrowded flight, the couple could not change seats
“Then I thought, maybe it’s someone’s body odor. I was sniffing and sniffing and then said let me get the cats out.”
Battah crouched down on his hands and knees to check on the pets and they were all fine.
However, he noticed a wet stain on the floor under the cat beds, about eight inches long and wide, and mentioned it to the passing flight attendant.
Battah commented, “I said it smells like merde — s***.” She gave me wet wipes. I started to wipe and it was red – blood red. And it kept turning red. I was like, “What the hell is this?” I just wanted to see what it was. After a while one of the flight attendants said, “You better go wash your hands, here are some gloves.”‘
While Battah was cleaning the stain, the flight attendant passed the message on to her colleagues and the captain contacted Paris to inquire about the stain.
Air France headquarters explained it was human blood, as the previous day on a flight from Paris to Boston, a male passenger had suffered what the crew called a “hemorrhage,” Battah said.
Fortunately, the passenger had survived and the captain of that trip had requested that the room be cleaned for the plane’s next flight back to the French capital, but the cleaners seemed to have forgotten about the floor.
Air France headquarters explained that it was human blood, as the previous day on a flight from Paris to Boston, a male passenger had suffered what the crew called a “bruise,” Battah said.
Battah was casually informed by the flight attendant that it was blood and then he noticed that the litter box was also stained and the blood had soaked into the travel basket, which doubled as a backpack.
He used a whole pack of wet wipes in a hurried attempt to clean up the mess.
Battah said only one flight attendant appeared annoyed and apologized on his behalf, while the others were unphased.
When he asked them what was the protocol for this type of incident, as it also endangers the flight crew, they replied that there was none.
The couple said they were offered two bottles of Evian water to make amends and were also given two business class blankets to put on the floor, along with some powder for the bloodstain.
It was a full flight, so there was no room for Battah and his wife to switch seats.
He said, “We were supposed to sit there for the next seven hours and smell the blood.”
“The smell of rotten blood is like dung. I had taken off my shoes at the start of the flight and there was blood on my socks.’
Three days after Battah’s flight on June 30, Air France told him over the phone that the blood was mixed with faeces.
Air France said in a statement to CNN that a passenger had become unwell on a flight from Paris to Boston the previous day and received medical treatment on arrival.
According to the procedure in this kind of situation, a complete cleaning of the area was requested and the row of seats was made unavailable on the return flight [from Boston to Paris],” the statement said.
“A customer traveling on the next flight from Paris (CDG) to Toronto (YYZ) reported traces of blood on the floor, soiling his personal belongings. The crew immediately helped him clean his belongings and provided him with suitable equipment such as sterile gloves and disinfectant wipes.
‘Because the flight was fully booked, it was not possible to move the passenger.
“An internal investigation has been launched to find out the reasons for this situation.”
The airline said it “understands and regrets the inconvenience caused by this situation” and has been in contact with Battah.
The statement added: “The risk of exposure to residual traces of blood on the carpet is low, if not non-existent.”
Battah said, “I have covered Beirut as a journalist for 20 years. I’ve been through wars, seen air raids, assassinations, car bombs and narrowly survived the harbor explosion. I thought I had seen everything. I didn’t expect to find more blood than I saw in Beirut on an Air France plane.’