A B.C. man who uses a wheelchair says he was forced to drag himself off an Air Canada flight in Las Vegas, after the airline failed to provide the assistance required for him to safely exit the plane.
Rodney and Deanna Hodgins flew from Vancouver to Las Vegas in late August, in a much-anticipated trip to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. Rodney, who is 49, has spastic cerebral palsy, and uses a motorized wheelchair.
The Prince George, B.C. couple travels every year, and is accustomed to the standard process to help him exit the plane. Usually, after the rest of the passengers have exited, an airline employee will bring an aisle chair — an extremely narrow version of a wheelchair controlled by handles.
But after landing in Las Vegas, an Air Canada flight attendant told the Hodgins no help, and no aisle seat, was coming — and said Rodney would need to get to the front of the plane by himself.
The couple said the suggestion was so absurd, they laughed, thinking it was a joke.
“How am I supposed to get to the front of my plane when I can’t walk? If I didn’t need a wheelchair, I wouldn’t have been sitting there,” said Rodney.
I bet to differ. We’ve gone with the other carrier whenever we can because AC has been just so comically bad and apathetic since almost the 1900s (and I love saying it like that).
But, once a year when #reasons dictate, we buck up and fly AC … and then we reaffirm our fleeting vow to never again.
This is just one of the many situations when I dearly wish to be proved wrong. But, it’s like a sergeant once said: “Don’t change, [soldier]; I’ve a BET riding on you!”
I used to fly them a lot and for international travel and I thought they were passable. Comparable to other options.
The domestic stuff was sometimes served a lot better by WestJet but even they were quite scrappy. Domestic is hard, European carriers do that a lot better.
But post-pandemic even their international stuff is an embarrassment. And among my colleagues (worldwide team) they’ve noticed too!