Habib Battah saw “a few things” when he was living in Lebanon.
“I’ve lived through wars (and) I narrowly escaped the port explosion in Beirut,” the investigative journalist and founder of Beirut Report told USA TODAY. But he said nothing compared to what he found on a recent transatlantic flight. “I had never seen so much blood in Beirut, honestly, in all those events.”
Battah and his wife were flying Air France from Paris to Toronto on June 30, when he discovered blood in the carpet at his feet, which the airline confirms came from a passenger on a previous flight.
Air France is investigating the series of events surrounding the highly unusual incident.
A bloody discovery
Battah said he noticed something was off about 10 minutes into the flight. “I started smelling something, a manure smell, and I kept thinking, ‘Oh no. It’s the cats.’ “
He and his wife were traveling with their cats, under the seat in front of them. The cats turned out to be fine, but Battah said when he checked on them, he noticed the ground beneath one of their carriers was wet, so he asked a flight attendant for a tissue.
“I just wiped it, and it was blood red,” he said. He went through more tissues. The backpack carrier had gotten wet too.
“What the hell is going on? What’s on my seat? What am I stepping in?” he remembered wondering. “And then the flight attendant just kind of said, ‘Oh, somebody actually hemorrhaged on the previous flight, so it must be that.’ ”
“Air France confirms that a customer became unwell on a flight from Paris (CDG) to Boston (BOS) on June 29 and soiled his seat,” the airline said in a statement, noting that while the passenger was not required to be isolated, “Passengers in the immediate vicinity of the customer were nevertheless moved for their own comfort.”
Upon landing in Boston, the airline said the passenger was treated by medical teams and, “As per procedure in this type of situation, a complete clean-up of the area was requested upon arrival in Boston, and the row of seats was made unavailable on the return flight.”
“A customer traveling on the next flight from Paris (CDG) to Toronto (YYZ) reported residual traces of blood on the floor, soiling his personal belongings,” Air France said of Battah’s experience. “The crew immediately took action to clean the carpet and installed blankets on the ground to avoid any further contact with the stain, while assisting the passenger in the cleaning of his belongings, providing him with suitable equipment such as sterile gloves and disinfectant wipes.”
‘A potential biohazard’
Battah recalls it differently. “Nobody was really helping me,” he said.
He said was given a pair of gloves, wet wipes, two bottles of water, and blankets so “there was a millimeter of blanket between me and the blood for most of the flight,” which was full so he couldn’t move elsewhere.
He was also advised to wash his hands, but said at the time he was thinking more of blood stains than health risks. “I’m learning that now, that it’s a vector for pathogens and all that stuff,” he said.
“If this were in a health care setting, we would obviously consider this a biohazard and treat it with great care to make sure that no one else potentially could become infected,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told USA TODAY.
Even though it had been a while since the previous passenger got sick, Schaffner explained that germs can survive and continue to be infectious for a period of time depending on various factors like volume and humidity.
“You could touch your mouth, your eyes and potentially infect yourself,” Schaffner said, adding that whether or not there is anything infectious, “You treat it as though it is a potential biohazard.”
No uniform standards
Henry Harteveldt, an independent travel industry analyst and president of Atmosphere Research Group said, “There is some training provided to cabin crews, the flight attendants, by airlines on how to handle situations like this when they occur,” noting it’s more often when someone gets air sick and “rarely something like a hemorrhage event.”
Protocols vary by airline, including what’s expected of flight attendants.
“The airline’s rationale could be, if flight attendants are not responsible for cleaning this up, it could be because they have to interact with lots of other passengers, so they don’t want to take the chance of the flight attendants becoming contaminated,” Harteveldt said. “The flight attendants also have to handle food and beverage items as part of their duties. Certainly, you want to make sure that you take steps to keep all of that safe.”
Harteveldt wasn’t aware of any international standards or requirements for cleaning but said there is no excuse for the plane to not have been thoroughly cleaned and checked after the previous passenger got sick.
“It wouldn’t have been acceptable in 2019,” he said. “It’s definitely not acceptable now, in a time where we are all highly aware of the risk of exposure to viruses and other germs in the wake of the COVID pandemic.”
USA TODAY has asked Air France about their cleaning protocols and how the plane was cleaned after both the Boston and Toronto flights. No additional comment was given, but the airline was previously recognized for its health and safety standards during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another discovery
Battah said three days after the incident, Air France contacted him to tell him the previous passenger didn’t have any infectious diseases, but there was something else.
“They just casually kind of said, ‘Oh, it was also feces,’ “ he recounted. “I was like wow, so I was actually touching not only someone’s blood but someone’s excrement,” which he called “horrifying and gross.”
“Air France understands and regrets the inconvenience caused by this situation,” the airline said in a statement. “The company’s customer service has contacted the passenger concerned and offered a compensation. Air France reiterates its apologies to the passenger.”
Battah said the airline offered him and his wife a $500 voucher, which he declined, saying it came to only about 20% of what they paid for the flight.
“They said they’re going to offer something else. We’ll see,’” he said. “But I do feel like someone should be held accountable here.”
