Amsterdam —

On a Monday morning in early September, Ben Vos’s phone rings at 5 a.m., marking a particularly early start to his week. The call is from air traffic control at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, informing Vos that a passenger on a flight from Asia has died en route to the Netherlands.

And thus, the process he oversees hundreds of times a year — managing post-mortem care for travelers who pass away abroad or, in this case, onboard — begins anew for Vos, who is mortuary coordinator at Mortuarium Schiphol , or Schiphol Mortuary, located outside the airport’s sprawling pre-security retail and dining area.

“There’s a special vehicle that comes right to the plane. We can go out of the plane and directly into the vehicle, so lots of people don’t see what we do at the airport,” he exp

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