You have to appreciate the custom behind it. What you are witnessing is a spacer funeral. The tradition is not unlike a Viking or navy funeral. The spacer is carried on his own vessel, or the vessel on which he used to be a crew member for his last voyage to the star or to the outer planetary orbits, where his body will be consigned to space. It is very important that it is the ship that he worked on that performs this last, sacred duty, as it symbolises the closed loop of his career. There has to be symmetry. Real sticklers for tradition will go for the same type of vessel on which the spacer made his first ever voyage, or even for the exact same vessel if it is still in service. As such funeral barges are often the big old ships on which a spacer started his career as lowly ship hand.
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The fact that shipping companies will forego a productive cargo trip to perform this last rite for one of their crew shows how important it is considered to be by spacers and their families alike. If the shipping company reneged on this duty it would soon find itself without crew (or at least trustworthy, skilled spacers).
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Only wealthy civilians would be carried off on something as ostentatious as an Orca. Most real spacers would not have started their career on a commercial passenger ship and wouldn't be seen dead (literally) on such ships.
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