Some airlines ask their customers to pay more to sit in the seat they want or check a bag, but one company allegedly tried charging a disabled woman to use their wheelchair. She chose to crawl off the plane.
Sunrise News reports Natalie Curtis from Queensland, Australia has been wheelchair bound since she was in high school. She said she was left humiliated when she flew from Singapore to Thailand and was told by attendants that she needed to pay extra to be wheeled off the plane.
Curtis said she had her own wheelchair with her, which was too big for the aisle. She said staff called for a specialized wheelchair that could fit between the rows, which took about 40 minutes to arrive, and asked her to pay.
“I didn’t really comprehend it and I was like, ‘No, I’m not paying to be able to get off this plane,'” she recalled, adding there was a language barrier. “They all just sat around for a while and the option that was left was for me to get on the floor and crawl.”
She estimated she crawled about 15 feet to exit the plane — all as her travel buddy, Natasha Elford, filmed the ordeal. Elford was unable to carry her friend due to a knee injury.
The plane company, Jetstar, denies the wheelchair was withheld from Curtis and said her crawling was caused by a “miscommunication.”
“Regrettably, this was not the case for Ms Curtis following a miscommunication that resulted in the delay of an aisle chair being made available at the gate on arrival and we are looking into what happened as a matter of urgency,” they said in a statement.
Jetstar also offered her a full refund and compensation, but Curtis says she will never fly with them again.