A young disabled woman from Abbotsford, BC, claims she experienced disability on a recent Air Canada flight.
Kourtney Kujawa, 24, uses a motorized wheelchair that the airline said was too big to fit in the cargo hold.
On Sunday, Kujawa was leaving Vancouver International Airport for Denver, Colorado, for a conference for people who also have the same rare genetic skin disorder called recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.
“It’s a place where I don’t feel different; I feel so different when I’m home. So it was really important for me to come and see my old friends and meet some new ones,” he told CTV News.
Kujawa was traveling with her sister and friend. Before the flight, she had given the travel agent the dimensions of the wheelchair and asked that the trio sit near the front. She has had her hands amputated and she needs the help of her loved ones.
“I need help with almost everything, like walking, putting on my seat belt, passing the drink, or if I need medication,” she explained.
But when they got to the airport, they found out that their seats were divided. Eventually, an agent was able to find seats for Kujawa to sit with her friend.
Just as they were getting ready to take off, a flight attendant told them the wheelchair wouldn’t fit even after they tried to remove the headrest.
Kujawa said she was surprised, as she has flown nearly a dozen times in the same wheelchair and has never had a problem.
“It was humiliating for me to have to leave,” he said.
They waited a couple of hours for the next flight, which was going to be a bigger plane.
But despite their optimism, they were told again that the wheelchair was too big and needed to be taken apart.
“We didn’t have the tools, so they told us next time we needed to bring our Allen key or a crescent wrench,” he said.
With the help of a mechanic, it took approximately 90 minutes to disassemble the wheelchair, delaying the flight for everyone on board.
“I felt like I screwed up a lot of people’s flights and connecting flights and all these things. And I felt really bad about it all. I feel like people with disabilities shouldn’t worry about things like this. We have enough at stake that we should be able to not worry about the flight process,” she said.
The trio finally made it to Denver, albeit nine hours later than planned.
Gabor Lukacs, founder of Air Passenger Rights, said Kujawa should never have been asked to bring his own tools.
“The passenger may be asked to provide a manual for disassembly and assembly, and may be asked to arrive earlier for check-in or to be at the gate earlier, but those are the only obligations of the passenger,” he said.
She wonders why the airline didn’t try to make room in the cargo hold for the wheelchair on the initial flight.
“The law is that the airline has the baggage and cargo in favor of installing mobility aids,” Lukacs said, adding that other items should be removed if necessary to prioritize the wheelchair.
“The bottom line is that these are discriminatory issues: not transporting a person because of their disability.”
He said the only exception is if the loading door is too small.
Air Canada would not comment on the details of Kujawa’s experience or say whether the gate was too small, but defended its process for those traveling in wheelchairs.
“We have well-established procedures for customers who require assistance and do our best to help customers traveling with a wheelchair,” the company wrote in an emailed statement.
It said it has a dedicated Air Canada medical help desk, which passengers should call at least 48 hours before departure to provide dimensions and battery type information for their mobility aid.
He said this is to ensure the wheelchair can fit through the cargo door of the plane.
“Air Canada will make every effort to accommodate passengers and their mobility aid and, if necessary, we will remove any cargo or baggage to make room for mobility aid storage,” the statement said.
Kujawa’s mother said they called the hotline, which had an hour-long wait, and were directed to the website.
The dimensions of the wheelchair were provided to the airline through your travel agent.
“They knew they were going to hire someone with a mobility problem. They had a mobility aid dimension, so just do the right thing,” Lukacs said, adding that the airline should have booked them on a different flight in advance or had a team ready to disassemble and reassemble the wheelchair. .
Kujawa will return to Abbotsford next week and isn’t sure she wants to fly Air Canada again if it means taking the wheelchair apart.
The airline told CTV News that it will contact Kujawa.