Things got heated on a Delta Airlines plane after a flight attendant threatened to call TSA on a wheelchair passenger to remove him from the plane using guns.
When Cory Lee’s flight landed in Atlanta, Georgia, from Santiago, Chile, he was glad to get out of the plane after a long trip. Little did he know that he would get into an altercation involving his wheelchair.
Lee, an award-winning travel blogger, was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at a young age and has used a wheelchair all his life.
However, being a wheelchair user has not stopped him from becoming a worldwide traveler. During all his flights, he is usually the last one to disembark from the plane as his wheelchair can take time to arrive at the jet bridge because it weighs 400 pounds.
On November 13, when the plane landed and everyone else had deplaned, the flight crew went to Lee with the aisle chair used to transport people with disabilities to their wheelchairs. Lee asked them if his electric chair was already on the jet bridge.
The flight attendants informed him his wheelchair wasn’t there yet, and Lee told them he wanted to stay on the plane until his wheelchair arrived.
Lee was well within his rights under the Air Carrier Access Act, which states that disabled people can request for the crew to return their wheelchair or walker to them on the jetway once they arrive at their destination airport and not in the baggage claim area. The Act says that airlines are required by law to return wheelchairs as closely as possible to the aircraft’s entrance upon request.
According to the travel blogger, it can take up to an hour for the crew to carry his chair up to the jet bridge, and it is highly uncomfortable for him to sit on the aisle chair. He also said that he is at a higher risk of developing pressure sores if he sits in the aisle chair.
Lee’s request to sit inside the plane until his power chair arrived at the aircraft did not go well with the flight attendants.
They got angered by his request and said he did not want to get off the plane. Lee later told reporters that a supervisor also got involved and wanted him to deplane before his chair got there, just like the other passengers.
Lee posted the interaction, which was caught on camera, to his Instagram account (which people often do these days) and one of the flight attendants told him to wait for his wheelchair outside on the aisle chair, or they would call the TSA, who would force Lee to get off the lane with “all their guns.”
Lee said he did not want to cave to pressure because he knew the law.
A few minutes after the altercation, an Atlanta Airport employee, whom Lee described as “nice and helpful,” told Lee his chair was at the door. He picked him up, put him on the aisle chair, and placed him into his wheelchair.
Delta Airlines said the exchange in the video did not reflect their high standards of care. They said they were following up on the incident and had reached out to Lee.
Lee said the airline told him they were looking into the incident.