'It felt really demeaning': Passenger with disability removed from flight at Vancouver airport

Thirty-two-year-old Shayne De Wildt has cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia, but that doesn’t stop him from playing the game he loves. De Wildt competes in power soccer, an adaptive sport for people who use wheelchairs.

The IT assistant from North Vancouver frequently travels to power soccer events across Canada.

“I’ve flown plenty in my life, and with this wheelchair I’ve flown (for) about six years, and never encountered anything like this,” De Wildt said. “When things went sour was when I was on board the flight.”

As he settled into his seat on a WestJet flight from Vancouver to Calgary last Friday, De Wildt was approached by airline staff, who told him there was a problem with one of his electric wheelchairs.

In an interview with CTV News, WestJet spokesperson Morgan Bell explained the chair was too tall to wheel into the cargo hold upright, so the ground crew had flipped it on its side, causing lights to activate on the back of the chair. And Bell says that’s a big problem.

“The aircraft can’t depart with any kind of unintentional power activation in devices in the belly of the aircraft,” she said.

While the plane sat on the tarmac and passengers waited, De Wildt says the baggage manager asked him how to disconnect the wheelchair’s batteries. He called the medical equipment company, and passed the phone to the ground crew to try to figure out a solution, to no avail.

“After what was close to an hour of trying to rectify it, the decision was made to offload the wheelchair and Shayne, ultimately, because the plane couldn’t safely depart,” said Bell.

De Wildt says being removed from the plane in front of other passengers because his wheelchair could not be safely stored in the cargo hold was humiliating.

“It felt really demeaning to me, being that I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m being treated like a second-class citizen in my own country,” he said. “It’s bewildering to me how something like this still happens in 2022.”

WestJet acknowledges the incident should never have happened.

“We sincerely apologize to Shayne,” said Bell. “We realize that was not an enjoyable experience for him to have to endure on the aircraft, especially given the fact that he had checked in, he had done everything right, and had been loaded onto the aircraft and his wheelchair was sitting there and it seemed to be powered off. And then when it got into the belly hold of the aircraft, that’s when the problems ensued.”

Ultimately, Air Canada was able to fly De Wildt to Calgary later that same day. That airline’s ground crew knew not to tip the wheelchair over when it was being loaded onto the plane, and removed the headrest to ensure it went in upright. WestJet said it will take steps to make sure this mistake never happens again.

“I think there is a lot of learning that the ground crew has learned from this, even dealing with the other operator that did carry the wheelchair. They know how to deal with that,” said Bell. “We believe we would be better prepared next time to make sure that this didn’t happen.”

De Wildt says many of his friends who use wheelchairs are hesitant to fly out of fear of encountering these types of issues with their essential equipment.

“I think it’s important to bring this to light and to help these airlines and people to be aware,” he said.

He wants airlines to ensure all staff and contractors know how to properly handle wheelchairs. And he won’t let the embarassing incident keep him from flying, saying:

“I play a sport and I compete, and you have to be able to travel doing this sport.”