Downward angle icon Downward angle icon. A woman in a wheelchair with her luggage. monkeybusinessimages/ Getty Images A Canadian travel blogger said she was removed from an Air Canada-operated flight for a “broken aisle chair.” Tori Hunter, 26, uses a power wheelchair due to a neuromuscular condition. “In 2024, people with disabilities deserve a more dignified and safer way to fly,” she wrote on Instagram.
A travel blogger has spoken out about wheelchair accessibility on aircraft after a “distraught” experience being removed from a plane.
Tori Hunter, 26, posted a video of herself descending a flight of stairs in a “broken aisle chair” that had “no armrests, a strap that wasn't tight enough to support me, and a broken front wheel.”
Hunter, who uses a power wheelchair due to a neuromuscular condition called spinal muscular atrophy, was on board the Air Canada flight to Costa Rica at the time of the incident.
“The people sent to help get people off this plane likely had very little training on how to get them off. They couldn't hold on to it properly, had to put their chairs down multiple times and were holding the chairs completely sideways,” Hunter wrote on Instagram.
“I was not informed that I would have to deplane in this way and it never occurred to me as this airport uses a jet bridge,” she added. “It's 2024 and people with disabilities deserve a more dignified and safer way to fly.”
Business Insider has reached out to Hunter for comment.
According to a U.S. Department of Transportation report, of the 33,631 complaints received by 180 airlines in 2021, more than 51% “related to the airline's failure to provide adequate assistance to wheelchair users.”
The ministry said it was “committed to improving air travel for people with disabilities, including wheelchair users.”
In a statement to BBC News, Air Canada said it followed all procedures to assist passengers with disabilities.
“However, as part of our accessibility plan, we will review airport procedures, including at smaller foreign airports, with a view to working with local airports and other partners to find ways to provide a more consistent service,” it added.
Air Canada did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment, made outside normal business hours.
Air travel can be a major source of anxiety for wheelchair users.
Ryan Ray Harback, who has been paralyzed for nearly 27 years, wrote an essay for Business Insider in March explaining what it's like to be paralyzed.
“For a wheelchair user to fly is to give up all rights to mobility and independence,” Harback wrote. “It's like having your legs taken away and being expected not to say a word about it.”
