Daily BrewSunwing blamed for losing woman's wheelchair on flight home to Canada
On its website’s FAQ page, Sunwing Vacations explains how passengers in need of special services should contact the airline, and what to expect. One line reads: “Please note that some foreign destinations may not define or provide for wheelchair access in the same fashion that we are accustomed to in Canada.”
What a lot of people would like to know after a recent Facebook post went viral is how Sunwing describes “what we are accustomed to in Canada.”
Based on Bowmanville, Ont. resident Rose Finlay’s alleged experience, it appears to include being left “stranded” and “bed bound” until her wheelchair is returned to her and a lack of response from the airline after sending multiple messages about her wheelchair that went missing between Cuba and Canada.
Finlay posted a status update to Facebook on Thursday describing her situation following a nightmarish vacation with her husband. Finlay uses a custom wheelchair, which she says was taken from her when her flight arrived in Varadero, Cuba, last Tuesday. In a public status update, she writes:
I made sure to make all of the necessary reservations (as I've done in past) with the travel company Sunwing. I go as far as to even give them the dimensions, weight and a detailed list of all of my equipment, medical supplies and special needs.
From the moment we landed in Cuba I was treated so poorly and humiliated both by the Cuban airport staff and the representatives of Sunwing. Upon arrival in Cuba, my wheelchair that was checked at the door of the plane was taken away from me. I was told it would come out on the carousel WITH my baggage. It came out DEAD LAST. As I sat humiliatingly crooked and bunched up in a rickety old wheelchair that was provided by the airport.
The service she received once in Cuba apparently made a bad situation worse:
I was completely ignored by the Sunwing representatives who would not help me resolve the issues we had at the resort. I ended up with a pressure sore from the mattress and decided it would be best to come home. Unfortunately I couldn't arrange to get home because I had no way of contacting the Sunwing representative who was supposed to be at the resort.
Leaving Varadero, the couple learned that they had been randomly switched to an indirect flight home. Finlay says she paid $40 to call Sunwing in Toronto to say that because of her bed sore, the extra time on the plane would compromise her health. The response, she reports, was not to her satisfaction.
She basically told me that there was no explanation for why I had been taken off [flight] WG219 and there was absolutely nothing she could do and no one in management that could take my call.
Left to their own devices, Finlay and her husband lined up to check in. The post continues:
Once at the counter, my bags were checked and I was then told to get out of my wheelchair as it had to be checked as luggage. I was instantly humiliated again and began to cry, in front of three planes of Canadian travellers. There was no way that I was going to check my custom wheelchair that is essentially my lifeline and my only support for independence in my activities of daily living. I asked the woman who tagged our bags for a tag for my chair. She refused to give me a tag unless it was being checked as luggage.
I was asked to step aside and wait to speak with customs to see if my chair could be let through. I waited for THREE hours. We were the first people to arrive in the terminal and we were the last to clear customs. I was treated like I was concealing a bomb, all because I needed my own wheelchair.
We made it to the plane and into our seats. At which time I asked the crew on board to please make sure that my chair was put on the plane. I apologized for bothering them while they were trying to get passengers on board but I explained the ordeal that we had been having. The Cabin Safety Manager asked three times to ensure the loading crew put my chair on the flight.
After landing in Toronto, the couple waited for the wheelchair to be unloaded from the plane. It never came. Finlay writes: “I was once again offered an airport wheelchair that my husband lifted me into—crooked, unsupported and uncomfortable. Humiliated once again and no one could help me, give me any explanation or resolution. The cabin crew was stunned. I applaud them and appreciate them for being so helpful and trying to salvage my dignity.”
A day later, Finlay says Sunwing Customer Service had not reached out to her. She concludes her summary of the debacle saying that she feels “re-paralyzed” and stripped of her independence. Because she cannot leave her bed, she feels isolated from her children, who had not been on the vacation. Her husband missed work to assist her.
At the time of writing, Finlay’s Facebook post had been shared more than 39,000 times.
What happens next?
If we can assume that Sunwing is accustomed to following Canadian laws, Finlay should be receiving her wheelchair or a replacement soon—in fact, it should have been replaced at the time that it was reported missing. A lawyer with the ARCH Disability Law Center in Toronto confirmed to Yahoo Canada that “the Canadian air carrier is responsible for the care and carriage of mobility aids and/or assistive devices during flights. So if a wheelchair is damaged, the airline must fix it. If it is lost, the airline must replace it. The carrier is obliged to provide a suitable temporary replacement immediately upon arrival at no cost to the passenger, and the passenger is entitled to use it until their own mobility device is repaired or replaced.”
Such a situation would be addressed by the Canadian Transportation Act which states: “On determining that there is an undue obstacle to the mobility of persons with disabilities, the [Canadian Transportation] Agency may require the taking of appropriate corrective measures or direct that compensation be paid for any expense incurred by a person with a disability arising out of the undue obstacle, or both.”
The law can get complicated. For example, an airline can ask a person to check a wheelchair as luggage if the plane does not have the space to accommodate it, according to the ARCH lawyer. It’s not clear whether that was the case with the Sunwing flight as the company could not be reached for comment.
Jeff Preston, a motivational speaker and academic who advocates for accessible transportation in Ontario, says that despite existing laws, Finlay’s situation is unfortunately common. Preston, who lives in London, Ont., uses a powered wheelchair. During his travels, it has been lost, misplaced, mistagged, and sent to the wrong airport. The 31-year-old says that in all of his years of flying, his chair has only made it through a journey unscathed twice. He has found this ineptitude to be a universal problem; Canadian airlines are no better or worse than the competition anywhere in the world.
A big part of the problem is that the system is extremely disjointed, Preston explains. Airline staff handle things differently from people who work at the airports and protocols change completely from company to company, and among third-party baggage handlers. It doesn’t help that everyone feels stressed for time.
Preston says that training is a problem, too. Rather than having a one-stop shop for the disabled, staffers on the ground, in the air, or on the phone are often unaware of what a person’s rights are or have conflicting information about how they’re supposed to meet someone’s needs. Preston was once told by a frontline staff in the U.S. that he would have to pay extra to bring his wheelchair on the plane, which was not only wrong but illegal under the American Disability Act.
He has never had a problem with outright rudeness, however.
“They’re always very apologetic for destroying the wheelchair,” he says, “but the frustrating part is that it keeps happening.”
When Sunwing eventually releases a statement, the company will likely apologize to Finlay and it may pay for damages, Preston supposes, but it’s unlikely to name any tangible actions it will take to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. Although social media storms are helping to spread awareness and scare companies into action, Preston says it won’t be enough for permanent change.
“Companies seem to know that they can wait until the bubble of public anger boils over, and then they can go back to doing what they’ve always done,” says Preston.
People need to complain every time rules are not followed, he says. The press should follow up to see if airlines have made any policy changes. The pressure must stay on the companies.
“Until we have that, we’re doomed to have this experience happen again and again.”
Finally, instead of relying on a corporation to have a moral compass, Preston and others are calling for federal regulations to govern the way airlines like Sunwing behave. This is the broader conversation we need to be having, he says. Canada needs a federal disabilities act, like the ADA, rather than the patchwork of provincial sets of laws that exist now.
