Air Canada is facing a new scandal after one of its flight attendants didn't give a disabled man the wheelchair he needed.
The airline staff even asked the British passenger to pull himself off the plane alone since the airplane didn't have a wheelchair.
Air Canada Wheelchair Scandal
According to The Guardian's latest report, the disabled man is Rodney Hodgins, a 49-year-old hardware salesman from British Columbia. Since he has spastic cerebral palsy, Hodgins needs to use a motorized wheelchair.
In August, he and his wife, Deanna Hodgins, decided to fly to Las Vegas to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They flew via Air Canada from British Columbia to Las Vegas.
However, they were not expecting that the end of their flight experience would be a very disappointing man. When they asked the flight attendant to get a wheelchair for Rodney, the staff told them that there was none.
The Air Canada employee explained that there wasn't enough time to board a wheelchair before the airplane had to prepare for takeoff again.
Deanna said that the flight attendant requested her husband to pull himself off the plane alone. At first, they thought that it was some kind of a joke. However, the airline staff repeated her request.
"How am I supposed to get to the front of my plane when I can't walk? If I didn't need a wheelchair, I wouldn't have been sitting there," said Rodney via CBC Canada.
Air Canada Apologizes To Disabled Man, His Wife
Since Rodney and Deanna didn't want to be rude and didn't want to ruin the experience of other passengers, they decided to do what the flight attendant asked them to do.
Rodney had to lift himself down to the floor and use his arms. He dragged himself from row 12 to the front of the Air Canada airplane.
The British man said that he was in excruciating pain while dragging himself off the airplane. After their disappointing experience, the couple said that Air Canada failed them in every sense.
They spoke to the airport manager, who apologized to them profusely. The Canadian airline said that they will investigate the incident and evaluate their mobility assistance service partners in Las Vegas.
Aside from apologizing, Air Canada also gave Rodney over $1,400 (2,000 CAD). However, the image of the Canadian flag carrier was already ruined by the wheelchair scandal.
