Japan Carrier Forces Wheelchair Man to Crawl onto Plane. Required to crawl for safety reasons. A low-priced Japanese airline on Wednesday (June 26th) apologized after having forced a man in a wheelchair to crawl up the stairs leading to his plane.
The scene took place in early June on the island of Amami-Oshima in southern Japan. Hideto Kijima, 44, was returning from vacation when a Vanilla Air employee informed him that the safety rules prohibited him from wearing it. According to the Asahi newspaper, the man had to hoist himself with the strength of his arms up to the 17 steps to embark aboard the plane bound for Osaka.
According to the Asahi newspaper, the man had to hoist himself with the strength of his arms up to the 17 steps to embark aboard the plane bound for Osaka.
Hideto Kijima, who travels frequently, said he was “surprised” when the staff exposed him to the problem. “I wondered if the employees at the airport did not find it incorrect,” he told a Japanese TV station.
“We are sorry to have subjected this test,” said a spokesman for Vanilla Air (ANA Holdings), contacted by AFP. Since this unfortunate episode, the company says it has set up at the airport a lifting device for people with disabilities, equipment used by airlines.
In April, US airline United Airlines had been heavily criticized after the violent deportation by the Chicago airport police of the passenger of an overbooked flight, a filmed scene that had raised a wave of international outrage.