As a wheelchair user who has the misfortune of needing to fly quite often: my go-to method when this happens (which is about 30% of the time) is to refuse to leave. That way, a nice bunch of burly security officers come and lift me off, saving me the days of pain that dragging myself on the floor causes.
It’s awesome living in a society that doesn’t give a shit.
Doesn’t this get you banned?
For what, flying while legless?
Not that, refusing to leave and security being called.
So far, once security arrive and see that the person refusing to leave the plane is physically unable to leave the plane, the bat starts to get swung towards the airline. I’ve been lucky I guess in that the human factor always kicks in to my favour.
Once I had law enforcement called (I can’t remember where I was exactly - as frequent fliers can empathise with - but it was somewhere in east Asia, maybe China) to remove me and I was freaking out about being stuck into a prison, and when the officers arrived they took one look at me and started SCREAMING at the flight crew. If I hadn’t been stressed to the hilt and freaking about about the deadline I was missing I probably would have found it hilarious.
(Also sorry if I sounded facetious before, where I’m from being legless is slang for being drunk so I was making a joke that I now realise no one else will have got)
Good to hear!
Nice to hear there’s still a good amount of sensible people out there, and that some of them are even in law enforcement.
It’s easy to lump everyone together into the 'bad’uns" category, but from my experience even the worst of bad’uns have some humanity in them.
Sometime it’s just very deep down ;)
I heard you can get blacklisted by the airline
Im not usually one to suggest lawsuits, but baby would this be textbook discrimination
also probably breach of contract (you paid for someone to get you a wheelchair which didnt happen)
Honestly I would love them to try, I could use some extra cash.
That sounds like it would make for a great lawsuit.
She said that eight cleaning crew members, two flight attendants, and the captain and co-captain watched as she tried to help her husband exit the plane.
At first I was going to say, “how as a human being do you stand there and watch this?” But i have to think that many of those people wanted to help but felt that they could not. Instead, I’ll ask: What kind of terrible, shithole, money grubbing, leach on society company must this be to have made all of those employees too scared to step forward?
Except the captain. That is your plane, you subhuman piece of shit. The company you work for may be the devil, but you let this happen while it was your responsibility to fix it. You watched it and did nothing.
I wonder if it’s a liability thing? Like, if they tried to help and he fell, they might be sued, lose their job, etc
Nonetheless, show some fucking humanity and help. Or even better, have the correct facilities available when they should have been. Dreadful story.
Undoubtably, the airline doesn’t allow them to help because of “lawsuit”
And while I agree, they should have had the wheelchair there in the first place, I don’t see that as the core problem. While this incident wouldn’t have happened if the wheelchair were there, there will always be problems that need to be addressed in real time while running their business.
This incident shows how they respond to problems and it is terrifying. Sure, the company could make sure there are wheelchairs on every plane so that this particular incident never happens again. But the broader issue is that they appear to have actively disempowered their employees from solving problems or doing anything outside their specific list of duties. Problems will always happen and you can’t have a precise plan for every possible problem. That’s whey employees need the power to solve those problems. Otherwise you get evil shit happening like this.
Edit: and the solution was simple. If you don’t have the wheelchair you are required to have, you wait for a wheelchair (or give the passenger get the option to be physically assisted off). Yes, that is painful to the business. It means delays. But that is the obvious solution.
That’s actually a really good point about the staff and their freedom/confidence to solve problems on their own initiative. Hadn’t thought of that, but you’re spot on.
Also agree on delaying the plane, I meant to say that myself. Imagine rushing the guy off AND not helping him… unbelievable.
This isnt the full story Give all the facts. Air Canada doesnt provide the wheelchairs at airports. Airports have companies that do that. Also a wheelchair wont fit in an airplane they usually wait just outside the door
