Michelle Daley, a wheelchair user who works on the government advisory committee Equality 2025, was barred from an Air France flight on March 26th and told that she posed a "health and safety risk." Ms. Daley was traveling to Belfast on business related to Equality 2025. As stewards rolled her across the tarmac in a specially designed aircraft chair, Ms. Daley was stopped by the flight's pilot and prohibited from boarding.
Ms. Daley told Sky News Online, "It was just humiliating and degrading. Just blatant discrimination." She added, "I'm advising the Government on disability equality and ironically I was prevented from doing my job properly. That type of discrimination is just not on."
A spokesperson for Air France defended the airline's actions, claiming that the type of aircraft used for the route on which Ms. Daley was scheduled to fly is unable to accomodate wheelchair users. Said the spokesperson, "Scot Airways uses a 38 seater Dornier aircraft on this route which means that due to the aircraft configuration, the company can not carry lift-on lift-off passengers in wheelchairs."
Ms. Daley was eventually able to reach Belfast on a BMI flight from Heathrow Airport.
As The Rolling Rains Report points out, European Commissioner Jacques Barrot recently promised, "I can guarantee you my full commitment to advance access of disabled people (to) the transport system." In addition, Air France's treatment of Ms. Daley appears to conflict with the European Union's Regulation on the Rights of Disabled Persons and Persons with Reduced Mobility When Travelling by Air, which can be downloaded here and which states, "Consequently, disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, whether caused by disability, age or any other factor, should have opportunities for air travel comparable to those of other citizens."
