The disabled person had to crawl to the toilet on the plane because they don’t have wheelchairs on it

M.G.

1. 10. 2024, 19.13

Updated: 1/10/2024, 7:18 p.m

“Wow, it’s 2024 and I just had to crawl across the floor of a Polish LOT plane to get to the toilet on a flight back from Warsaw to London,” the BBC’s security correspondent insisted on the X network Frank Gardner. “They do not have wheelchairs, it is the policy of this airline,” he said and concluded “If you are disabled and cannot walk, it is very discriminatory.“

Later, Gardner added that the staff were extremely friendly and apologized to him, but he says that it is not their fault, but the fault of the airline, which has such a policy. After Gardner’s posts on social media, which sparked a lot of criticism of LOT, the airline issued a statement to Polish media and also apologized to the journalist for the humiliating experience.

“We are very sorry for the experience Mr. Frank Gardner had during his last year with us,” wrote LOT. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by the lack of a wheelchair on board.” Gardner accepted the apology, but still wrote: “I will not fly with LOT again until they join the 21st century.“

Frank Gardner has been using a wheelchair since he was left partially paralyzed after being shot by Al Qaeda gunmen while reporting in Saudi Arabia in 2004. In a separate message, the disabled journalist explained that all the airlines he had flown with in recent years had aboard a wheelchair. He noted that such carts are very small and can be folded and stored in overhead cabinets.

LOT Airlines explained that wheelchairs are currently available on their long-haul flights, but not on short-haul flights. Although there have been some improvements in recent years, access for disabled people in Poland is often poor. In 2021, the Ministry of Infrastructure admitted that only 29 out of 526 railway stations in Poland were fully adapted to the needs of people with disabilities.