Woman Stopped At The Airport With Her Husband’s Skeleton In Her Luggage. He Had Been Dead 12 Years.

Two women were flying between Greece and Armenia – double connecting in Munich and Kiev. On their first stop in Munich their luggage was searched.

The women, aged 74 and 52, were traveling with a wooden box. It turned out to contain the skeleton of the 74 year old’s dead husband.

This was… an unusual situation. So police consulted with customs officials, prosecutors, and a doctor. Needless to say they missed their connection. Although it turns out they hadn’t committed any crime, and German officials believed their story that the two travelers had the mans remains dug up in Thessaloniki, and were bringing him back to be re-buried in Armenia. The man had been dead since 2008.

Fortunately for the women their complicated itinerary didn’t include segments on Delta or on United, both of which have lost bodies checked as luggage.

(HT: C Boarding Group)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Three questions:

    In this situation would Spirit charge her for carry on baggage or a full seat for her husband?

    Can people actually fly with emotional support skeletons?

    Did she file a change of address form for her husband with findagrave.com?

  2. If a ticket for the dead husband is booked with American Airlines, do you earn double AAdvantage frequent flyer miles and credit for million miler status? If your name is Bernie, will you earn bonus miles when travel is on a weekend?

    I googled “Weekend at Bernie’s” but did not find an answer.

  3. I hope the airlines made up for the missed connections and looked after them. If not, she has a bone to pick with Lufthansa…

  4. Skeleton’s on planes

    Eddie the skelton is part of the crew on Ed Force One (Iron Maiden’s 747) I guess he’s the band’s emotional support skeleton. Normally he can be found in the closet of the first class cabin 😉

  5. Of course it happened in Germany. All of the officials had to go to consult the Book of Instructions.

    Traveling by rail from Amsterdam to Copenhagen In 1977 (before Schengen and EU) — a person in our 1st class compartment had a 2nd class ticket. The rest of us in the compartment asked the conductor (who looked like John Banner, a/k/a Sgt. Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes”) if her ticket could be upgraded. It took 3 trips to the front of the train to “consult the Book of Instructions” before the transaction could be completed.

  6. Mike – you thinking she was some skeleton smuggler’s mule? OMG – check Google for “Skeleton Smuggling.” There really are international skeleton smuggling rings.

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