By road or by air: how the transport is chosen

Families assume a repatriation means a flight, because that is what the word suggests and because that is how it is usually described. For most of the repatriations we arrange, it does not. Within Europe your loved one travels by road, in one of our vehicles, with the same team from our chapel of rest to the funeral director at the other end. Air is for where road cannot go, or would take too long to be kind.

Why road comes first

Three reasons, and they are all about your loved one rather than about cost, though it is cheaper too.

Fewer handovers. On a road repatriation your loved one leaves our chapel of rest in our vehicle and arrives at the receiving funeral director in the same vehicle, with the same two people. Nobody else touches the coffin. By air, the coffin passes from us to the airline’s cargo agent, to the aircraft’s hold, to the cargo agent at the other end, to the receiving funeral director, and each handover is a place where a document can be queried or a delay can begin.

No schedule but ours. A vehicle leaves when the last document is in hand. A flight leaves when the airline’s cargo schedule says, which on a busy route is daily and on a thin one might be twice a week, and cargo space for a coffin has to be booked and confirmed.

We know where they are. On the road we can tell you, at any hour, which country your loved one is in and when they will arrive. In the air we can tell you the flight number.

What a road repatriation involves

Your loved one is embalmed and placed in a sealed coffin at our chapel of rest, with the documents the destination and each transit country require. The vehicle is one of ours, built for this and nothing else, and it is driven by two of our own staff, in shifts, so that it does not stop overnight. At each border the documents are shown; inside the Schengen area there are no routine checks, and what Schengen membership changed for Romania and Bulgaria explains why that matters for two of the commonest destinations. At the destination the vehicle goes to the receiving funeral director and the handover is made in person. Repatriation from the UK to Europe by road is the fuller account.

What an air repatriation involves

Your loved one is embalmed and placed in a coffin prepared to the airline’s standard, which is stricter than the road standard because the hold is pressurised and the coffin is handled by people who do not know what is inside beyond the label. The coffin travels as cargo on a scheduled passenger or freight flight, booked through the airline’s cargo agent, with the documents attached. At the destination airport the receiving funeral director collects from the cargo terminal, with the same documents, and takes your loved one to the funeral director. The airline sets the schedule, the price by weight and route, and the rules about the coffin.

Where the line falls

Road, for anywhere in mainland Europe the vehicle can drive to in a reasonable time, which in practice is everywhere from Ireland to Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Air, for the rest of the world, for islands without a ferry route the coffin can use, and for the few countries whose rules require a body to arrive by air. There are edge cases: a very long road route to the far south east of Europe can be slower than a direct flight, and where the destination is a regional city far from any airport, road can be quicker than air. We choose by the case, and we tell you why.

Can the family travel with them?

By road, you can follow in your own car, though the vehicle drives in shifts and will not stop when you do. By air, you can book a seat on the same flight, and families often do, though the airline treats the two bookings entirely separately and there is no access to the hold. Either way the receiving funeral director will tell you when your loved one has arrived.

Sea, for completeness

Sea freight exists and is very rarely used for a person, because it is slow, the handling is heavy and almost every route it serves is served better by air. We mention it because it appears on lists; it does not appear in our quotes.

What it costs

Road is cheaper than air for anywhere it reaches, which is why our European estimates start at £2,800 and our long-haul ones at £4,500 to £6,000; how much does repatriation cost from the UK has the bands. Every figure is an estimate until we know the case, and the written quote is the figure on the invoice.

The transport is step six of eight; repatriation, step by step is the other seven.