Over the last year, multiple airlines have landed in the hot seat over how they treat passengers with disabilities and transport their equipment.
One of the most high-profile incidents occurred when, in November 2023, a viral TikTok video captured two American Airlines (AAL) baggage handlers tossing around a passenger’s wheelchair on the tarmac. A year earlier, an Air Canada Air (ACDVF) passenger described how the airline broke a $30,000 custom wheelchair and then offered a $500 travel voucher for the “inconvenience” while a traveler with cerebral palsy once had to drag himself off a plane using his upper body strength after the airline failed to get his wheelchair onboard and did not offer a replacement.
Related: Disabled travelers keep asking airlines to stop breaking their wheelchairs
The latest airline to face scrutiny over how it handles the wheelchairs it transports is Southwest Airlines (LUV) . Two members of the Phoenix Suns D2 wheelchair team, Myranda Shields and Justin Walker, were traveling to Richmond, Virginia for the National Wheelchair Basketball Association National Championships.
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Wheelchair traveler describes: ‘All the wheels are off our chairs’
According to the players, they arrived at the Richmond airport from a transfer in Denver only to find their wheelchairs disassembled into multiple pieces with no staff available to help put them back together.
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“When we got there, it was like they weren’t prepared for us at all,” Shields described to USA Today. “There was no communication from Denver, like ‘we just packed you the world’s biggest mess of a cargo situation.’ All the wheels are off of our chairs, and they don’t have any additional employees to help us.”
In a further video showing the wheelchairs in pieces that she posted on her Instagram (META) account, Shields also said airport authorities called the police after some of the team’s family members tried to step in where Southwest wouldn’t and help put the wheelchairs together because they were allegedly “breaking airport protocol.”
‘If we have to listen about how many exits are on a plane’
“For me, it’s the lack of listening by Southwest employees and the ground staff,” Walker also told the news outlet. “If we have to listen to them about how many exits are on the plane, if we have to listen to them about what to do and what not to do, then they should have the decency to listen to us.”
Related: Delta Air Lines makes a baggage change that travelers will like
After the story started going viral (Shields’ post gathered more than 33,000 Instagram upvotes from both fans and disability advocates who described instances of similar things happening to them), Southwest issued an apology over how it handled the situation. Without elaborating on if and how the staff who handled the baggage on that flight were disciplined, the airline said it “reviewed the situation” with “the appropriate parties.”
“We have reviewed the situation and addressed it with the appropriate parties,” the airline said in a statement. “We value our customers and incorporated their feedback to strive for a better experience the next time they fly with Southwest. We apologize any time we don’t meet customer expectations and have a long history of caring for our customers.”
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