A British woman with disabilities has missed a flight from Manchester to Benidorm due to miscommunication from airport staff.
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British Lynne Smillie (49) suffers from muscular dystrophy, which prevents her from climbing the stairs of an airplane on her own. The woman flew from the United Kingdom to Spain with her husband Stephen (54) at the end of May. To enter the plane, the woman received assistance from ABM, a company that helps disabled people at airports.
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Waiting for an elevator
“Usually they put us in a wheelchair first, but they didn’t. There were about five of us, but they made us wait until the end,” Smillie said, according to the British Metro. The woman was said to have been placed in a lift while the other passengers boarded.
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According to Smillie, an employee of handling company Swissport came to request their boarding passes, but that person would have left without further explanation.
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When an ABM employee picked up the couple at the elevator, that person is said to have refused boarding just because they no longer had their boarding passes with them.
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Next flight
The ABM employee would have cleared up the incident with the Swissport employee, but it was already too late for the couple to step in. “The pilot no longer accepts you, my apologies,” it would have been said.
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The couple eventually arrived in Benidorm on another flight a day later. According to a Ryanair spokesperson, they were rebooked “free of charge”.
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Our reporter works at the check-in desk at Brussels Airport: “Give me a seat on that plane. Now!”(+)
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