Meet you in the air

A snippet from our local rag this morning

Flying coffins a booming business for NI airline

Airline air2there is gliding through the turbulence of economic slowdown through a booming casket transfer business which it calls air2thereafter.

Air2thereafter owner Richard Baldwin said the coffin transfer service provided steady business and back-up to its normal commuter flights between Nelson, Blenheim and Wellington.

The Kapiti company's regular business had been quieter this year, but Baldwin said the air2thereafter service was steady. The living are not required to travel with coffins on board as the flights are run separately.

However, because some people "could get a bit bloody leery about travelling in an aircraft which not so long before had a casket in it", steps are taken to cleanse the aircraft using protocols from local iwi.

"That is especially important to Maori and Pacific Island people."

The company had flown the dead as far south as Invercargill and as far north as Kerikeri and did not charge family members for any seats remaining once the casket was in place.

"In the past we have seen these sorts of things get tossed in small aircraft in all sorts of undignified ways, so we thought we would see how it ought to be done properly."

They spent six months getting it right, he said, before launching the service about three years ago. Dealing mainly with funeral directors rather than families, parties of up to 10 family members had travelled with coffins on their 14-seater planes.