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.

  • Ulrich_the_Old@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    If air flight is a necessity it should not be in private hands. Nothing essential should be making profit for anybody. Everything essential should be provided by the government through taxation and should be at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer.

    • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Healthcare, electricity, water, natural gas (before it’s phased out) and some kind of basic isp and cell system that provides a minimum level of service (like 500kb/s with no data cap).

      • TheKingBee@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I agree with everything except for “500kb/s” that is not enough…

        5 Mbps would be my lower limit, if I had to set one.

        • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          500kb/s is enough to access online services (like federal, provincial, healthcare, etc), would be easy to provide even in remote areas and a negligible cost to network operators. The only reason people “need” megabit connections today is endless feeds of video content.

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            500 kbit/s is just awfully slow.

            You talk like megabit is overkill, when in fact it’s absolutely not.

            If you’re even gonna bother with providing networking to everyone at least set your bar a little higher.

            Forcing them to provide free 1-10 Mbit/s to everyone in range of a WWAN or using regular wired WAN, wouldn’t affect operators in any meaningful way.

          • TheKingBee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            So punishment for being poor?

            There is no technological reason for it to be that limited…