Mishap can happen in business class flight as well

James Moore, The Independent

How do you lose a wheelchair? How?

I’m going to tell you story a friend of mine told me. I was appalled when I heard it, but given that I also use a wheeled conveyance to get around beyond very short distances, maybe not as appalled as I should have been.

It started at the end of an ostensibly routine flight. While waiting to get off the plane, my friend was approached by an attendant and told that the airline had lost his chair.

Now, that’s quite an achievement. A wheelchair is a sizeable piece of kit; his is a funky matte white piece of kit. You could probably buy a second-hand car for the recommended retail price, if it had a few miles on the clock. He was fairly shocked and not a little annoyed. My friend has spina bifida and no ability to walk as a result. In other words, the airline had lost his legs.

Keen to get him off the plane so that it could be prepped for its next flight, the crew offered to supply him with an alternative chair in which he could wait while his own was located. This was not out of any concern for him, but to get rid of him. My friend is smart and not the sort of person who’s easily pushed over. He proved that by flat refusing to move. The reason? He feared that if he did he would be left to stew for an indeterminate but extended period of time in some draughty corner of the airport. Would the chair ever be located were that to happen? He feared not. Would you be willing to put your trust in people to find something they’d been so careless in losing it borders on negligence if they were under no pressure to do so? An impasse ensued during which time people made phone calls and talked on walkie-talkies while trying to persuade my friend to be a good chap and get out of the way, which isn’t a terribly unusual situation for those of us with disabilities to find ourselves in. Eventually, after still some more to-ing and fro-ing, the conveyance was located, and my friend was able to continue with his journey.

Here’s where you get the twist. The subject of this story has a well-paid job with a big company that requires him to fly a lot. This gives him the metaphorical golden ticket. He gets to go business class.

Those of us who are restricted to cattle — sorry, economy — class are accustomed to rough-and-ready treatment. It goes with the territory. We aren’t prepared to pay anything other than peanuts for our flight, so we get treated like monkeys — regardless of our physical state. Whether animal welfare laws would be breached were actual monkeys to be given the couple of inches you get in economy is an open question. But in business class, it’s supposed to be different. Given what airlines charge, it should be. Except that beyond a little extra comfort, food that’s marginally edible and upscale. Not if you’re disabled. Exception for the 0.00000001 per cent who can afford things like private jets, chauffeur-driven limos and to be treated as something other than rank inconveniences, differently-abled people have achieved the holy grail of equality — it’s just not the sort of equality anyone would want.