An Australian woman on a Jetstar flight to Thailand was made to crawl off the plane because she said staff wouldn’t get her a wheelchair unless she paid extra.
Natalie Curtis from Queensland said that when she got on her flight from Singapore to Bangkok, they gave her a special wheelchair that fits in the aisles.
But Ms. Curtis says she was told she would have to pay to be wheeled off the plane when she landed in Bangkok and needed the same service.
Ms. Curtis was with her friend, Natasha Elford. Ms. Elford said she couldn’t carry her because she had hurt her knee, and the video shows that Ms. Curtis had to crawl off the plane.
‘I didn’t really comprehend it (being charged for the wheelchair) and I was like, ‘No, I’m not paying to be able to get off this plane’,’ Ms. Curtis told Sunrise.
‘It was extremely humiliating.’
Since high school, Ms. Curtis has been in a wheelchair, and she said she had “never felt so low in her life.”
Ms. Elford said that the whole thing made her feel shocked and bad for her friend.
‘I couldn’t physically lift her so I felt really hopeless and I couldn’t believe this was really happening.’ Ms Elford said.
The two women said they tried to find out if they could get a free wheelchair quickly, but the flight staff “just stood around and watched and didn’t really do anything,” they said.
The airline gave Ms. Curtis a full refund, extra money, and an apology for what had happened.
‘We unreservedly apologise to Ms Curtis for her recent experience while travelling with us,’ they said.
‘We are committed to providing a safe and comfortable travel experience for all our customers, including those requiring specific assistance.’
The airline also said that it is not against their rules to use a wheelchair to get on or off their planes.
Jetstar was looking at the situation as a “matter of urgency,” and their first questions showed that her need for a wheelchair when they landed was not in their system.
The airline said that the free standard wheelchair was being set up “ad hoc” when the plane landed, but there was a long wait.
Ms. Curtis and Ms. Elford are speaking out so that no one else has to go through what they did.
