Written by Candy B Harrington, Barrier-Free Travels, December 8, 2023
It’s been a rough year for a quartet of wheelchair-users who traveled on Air Canada. They traveled at different times and on different routes, but in the end they all had issues with the accessible services provided — or not provided — by this Canadian air carrier.
Let’s start with Ryan Lachance, who was traveling back from a comedy festival in Halifax to Vancouver in early May. Upon landing his care assistant told the crew at least four times that Lachance needed the Eagle Lift to transfer. Unfortunately that request was ignored, and they tried to wrestle him out of his seat and transfer him to the aisle chair. There was a lot of back and forth, and the crew was apparently having trouble with the manual transfer. As a result, Lachance was dropped — hard — on the floor. He sustained multiple bruises on his back, and it took days for him to recover. Air Canada subsequently offer Lachance $500 in flight credits. If I was him, I’d be leery about giving them a second chance.
Next up is the sad saga of Rodney Hodgkins, who traveled to Las Vegas with his wife on Air Canada. Rodney also uses a wheelchair, and although his boarding in Canada went OK, there were problems when the couple landed in Las Vegas. Hodgins normally uses an aisle-chair, but it requires two or three people to transfer and assist him. He told this all to Air Canada when he booked his flight. When only one person showed up with the aisle chair, Hodgkins explained his needs and the attendant radioed for more assistance. Then the cleaning crew came on and the flight attendant told Hodgkins he must get off of the plane because they needed to turn it around quickly. Resigned that nobody would help him, Hodgkins dragged himself off the plane. Not the greatest way to celebrate your first wedding anniversary. Air Canada acknowledged it’s error and later apologized to Hodgkins.
Then there’s the story of Canada’s Chief Disability Officer, Stephanie Cadiuex. Also a wheelchair-user, she was traveling from Toronto to Vancouver on Friday October 20. Although she had no problems with boarding and deplaning, her wheelchair was not on board when she arrived in Vancouver. Unfortunately this happens all too often, but when it happens to a high ranking official it gets press. And that’s good. Air Canada found and returned her wheelchair the next day. But that’s a day late and a dollar short in my book.
And last but certainly not least you have the travel tale of Alessia Di Virgilio. Although she had several issues on her flights, she encountered the biggest problem when she landed in Toronto. Like Ryan Lachance, she asked to use the Eagle Lift to transfer from her airline seat. The good thing was that it was available. The bad thing was that the attendant said he hadn’t used the lift in seven years and wasn’t really familiar with it. According to Di Virgilio, the staff seemed to operate the lift on a trail-and-error basis. And after she was finally transferred, the left fell over and hit her in the head. To say that the whole experience was horrifying is perhaps a bit of an understatement.
And these are just the high profile cases — the ones that made the news. I’m sure there are many more incidents out there, especially ones that include lost or mishandled wheelchairs.
As a result Air Canada is now required to meet with Canada’s Transportation Minister as well as the Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities Minister. Hopefully that will lead to some sort of solution to provide safer and more efficient air travel for wheelchair-users.
We can only hope.
POSTCRIPT:
The Canadian Transportation Agency has handed Air Canada a fine of $97,500 after a passenger who uses a wheelchair was made to drag himself off a plane in Las Vegas.
In a statement, the CTA said the airline must pay for “several violations of the Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations.”