Yikes: Air France Passenger Found Another Passenger’s Blood on the Floor of His Seat

Remember when airlines were assuring everyone that their cleaning protocols during Covid were hospital-level, etc? Well, that seemed to last only as long as absolutely necessary, at least when it comes to certain instances when airlines fail to clean and check everything, like on this recent Air France flight.

Air France Flight Failed to Clean Passenger’s Blood from the Floor

On June 29, an Air France flight was traveling from Paris to Boston and a passenger in row 30 suffered some level of a hemorrhage that not only contained blood but it was also mixed with feces.

The next day, Habib Battah was on the same Boeing 777 flying from Paris to Toronto when they discovered a smell that they said was like manure. Since they were traveling with two cats, he thought that maybe they had an accident. However, while checking around on the floor on his hands and knees, he found it wasn’t the cats but some kind of “wet stain on the floor” that he said was about 20 inches long and wide.

The flight attendant handed him wet wipes and as he was wiping the floor, he saw that it was “blood red” color on the wipes from the blood-dampened floor. The nearby flight attendant saw, “you’d better go wash your hands, and here are some gloves.” The pilot checked and then it was found out from Paris that the previous day’s passenger had had a medical incident of some kind. The row had been out of use for that return flight as the cushions were removed but, apparently, the cleaners either forgot to clean the floor or had been unaware that the male passenger’s blood had also traveled to the floor.

Check the Twitter thread below for more photos and video.

I’ve seen a few things in my life, but the horrific blood-soaked carpet on my @airfrance plane yesterday was another level! An hour into the transatlantic flight from Paris to Toronto, I kept smelling something gross and couldn’t figure it out. Until I got up and looked down…(1 pic.twitter.com/if919aLlO8

— Habib Battah (@habib_b) July 1, 2023

Air France issued a statement to CNN, which is where I saw this story:

“As per procedure in this type of situation, a complete clean-up of the area was requested and the row of seats was made unavailable on the return flight [from Boston to Paris]. A customer travelling on the next flight from Paris (CDG) to Toronto (YYZ) reported residual traces of blood on the floor, soiling his personal belongings.

The crew immediately assisted him in cleaning his belongings, providing him with suitable equipment such as sterile gloves and disinfectant wipes. As the flight was fully booked, it was not possible to move the passenger. An internal investigation has been launched to understand the reasons for this situation. The risk of exposure to residual traces of blood on the carpet is low, if not non-existent.”

As you can see, Air France acknowledged that the blood soiled the belongings of Battah and that they “provided” him with suitable equipment such as “sterile gloves and disinfectant wipes.” This because, apparently, the crew had no protocol for how to handle this and they chose to have the passenger clean this up instead of some other solution.

Also, because it was a full flight, Battah and his wife had to stay in that row, with two business class blankets to put on the floor along with powder to help with the smell.

Funny that Air France went right for addressing “exposure” concerns as well, without even knowing what the bleeding passenger may have had, what level of blood was in the carpet, and what it may have had in it.

Air France, according to Battah, called him three days later and offered to have his cats washed and offered a $500 voucher. He declined it and is consulting lawyers since he feels that having to deal with such an issue is worth more than a voucher, especially since they had paid $1,250 each for the flight.

What do you think would be appropriate compensation for such an incident?