PUBLISHED ONNovember 01, 2022 5:13 AMByWong Dao EnAn Australian woman on a Jetstar flight was forced to crawl down the aisle for more than four metres after she was allegedly told by a crew member to pay for an aisle chair in order to get off the plane.
In a Facebook post, Natalie Curtis, who was flying en route from Singapore to Bangkok when the incident happened last week, said that she has "never felt so degraded in my life".
Curtis, who has been in a wheelchair since she was a teenager, said she was offered an aisle chair when she boarded the flight.
However, she was told that she would have to pay for another chair to disembark from the plane, Australian television news service 7NEWS reported.
"There was a bit of a language barrier," she said. "We obviously declined because I've never had to pay to use a chair in any of my travels."
An aisle chair is a small wheelchair that is used to transport passengers from their personal wheelchair to their seat on the airplane.
She ended up having to crawl for more than four meters to get to her wheelchair, she said, adding that there was about five people standing around watching.
"I didn't really comprehend it (being charged for the wheelchair) and I was like, 'No, I'm not paying to be able to get off this plane'," Curtis told 7NEWS' morning show Sunrise.
"It was extremely humiliating."
Her friend Natasha Elford, who filmed the incident, said she was unable to help as she had a knee injury, news.com.au reported.
Elford also said that the crew did offer to carry her, but they did not go through with it as they could have dropped her, which would have made it "10 times worse".
"The safest way for her was to [crawl down the plane], unfortunately."
Jetstar has since reached out to Curtis to apologise, as well as offer a refund and better understand what happened.
In a statement given to 7NEWS, Jetstar said that "a miscommunication resulted in the delay of an aisle chair being made available at the gate on arrival."
"At no point was an aisle chair withheld due to a request for payment."
An aisle chair was requested on arrival, CNA reported, but the crew were advised that it was not available for at least 40 minutes.
And during that time, Curtis' wheelchair was brought onto the plane but was too big to fit down the aisle.
This is not the first time that a passenger with disabilities was forced to crawl down the aisle after being told that they had to pay for an aisle chair.
Just about month ago, a video of a paraplegic passenger crawling down the aisle on an AirAsia flight to Singapore went viral and sparked online outcry.
In that incident, Eva Keliat was told by AirAsia staff that she had to pay $40 for an aisle chair so that the passenger she was travelling with could get on his personal wheelchair, which was only three meters way.
AirAsia told AsiaOne they apologised to the passenger and added it would ensure an incident of this nature did not occur again.
Both Jetstar and AirAsia have said that they do not charge for the use of an aisle chair.
wongdaoen@asiaone.com
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