A guest blog by my excellent co-campaigner and friend Esther. Please share awareness of this and bring pressure on easyJet to do the decent thing.
Just before Christmas I went on a phenomenal holiday to Egypt.
On the way home, it was ruined by Easyjet who messed up the boarding at Hurghada so I was carried on to the plane last (it’s supposed to be first) in a totally humiliating fashion, meaning other passengers had to move and I was holding up the plane. Then, it got worse; they smashed up my travel wheelchair. Now, they’re refusing to fix or replace it as they say the ‘Montreal Convention’ limits how much they can pay to fix ‘baggage’. Thing is, it’s not baggage; it’s my mobility. It’s my way of getting around. It’s an object of freedom. And they smashed it up so surely they should put it right?
The chair had been carefully wrapped in packing plastic by my assistant, but when I picked it up, someone had tried to force it out of the plastic (rather than either leaving it for me to sort OR cutting it) putting enormous forces through the brackets which hold the backrest to the seat. Before I even got near it, when it was still on the concrete, the man driving the ‘ambulift’ (thing that takes wheelchair using passengers off planes) said ‘that looks totally wrong’ because the backrest was bent, handles at 45 degree angles etc.
The ‘chair is an Icon A1. It’s adjustable and custom to my needs. The specialist seating I need used to fit on it, but not it’s so bent it’s unusable. I can’t travel anywhere, and when my power chair is having work done on it or something, I’ve no mobility at all as this ‘chair is my travel/backup one. It had served me so well – enabling me to travel across the world, go diving with amazing fish at a disabled diving school, go out and go in the sea… and yet Easyjet couldn’t get it through an airport without destroying it.
Easyjet, it’s on you; please get me a suitable replacement or more likely a whole new chair as the frame itself has been bent.
Please share – it’s simply unacceptable for companies to smash up mobility devices. They’re not ‘baggage’ in the usual sense.