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A passenger on an Air Canada flight says he had to get on the floor and drag himself to the front of the plane after airline staff wouldn't assist him, Canadian broadcaster CBC News reported.
Rodney Hodgins told CBC News he flew with his wife Deanna from Las Vegas to Vancouver on Air Canada in late August.
Hodgins, 49, has spastic cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair for mobility. He said a flight attendant on board told him nobody would help him get to the front of the plane and that he would have to pull himself there, per CBC. Insider has not been able to independently verify his claims. Rodney and Deanna Hodgins did not respond to Insider's requests for comment.
"How am I supposed to get to the front of my plane when I can't walk? If I didn't need a wheelchair, I wouldn't have been sitting there," Hodgins told CBC News.
On October 24, Deanna Hodgins posted about her husband's experience on Facebook.
Hodgins had to use his arms to move himself while she crawled behind to assist him, she wrote: "As he drug his body — I could see bits of his dignity and along with strength slowly fall… I tried my best to take some of his weight off his legs and help him but we both ran out of gas."
The couple said he could use his motorized wheelchair once he reached the front of the plane, per CBC News.
The couple told CBC News they spoke to the airport manager in Las Vegas, who apologized for the incident. Air Canada flies from Vancouver International Airport to Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. Harry Reid International Airport did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.
The couple told CBC News they met with an Air Canada representative on their return flight to Vancouver, who advised them to file a formal complaint. The couple added that an Air Canada representative contacted them and offered a $2,000 flight voucher for the incident. It's unclear if the couple accepted the voucher.
"I thought — it's not about that. I want you to change your policy so that you always have somebody there all the time when a person with a disability is coming off that plane," Hodgins told CBC News.
"Someone should reach out to us and say, we failed you," Hodgins continued.
Air Canada told CBC News in a statement that they use a third-party wheelchair assistance specialist in Las Vegas but didn't state the name of the company they contract.
"Following our investigation into how this serious service lapse occurred, we will be evaluating other mobility assistance service partners in Las Vegas," the airline said, per CBC News. Air Canada did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.
The Canadian Transportation Agency told Insider it launched an investigation into the incident last week. "The Agency is committed to protecting the fundamental human right of persons with disabilities to accessible transportation services," the agency said in an email.
The agency also said that under the Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations, airlines are required to provide assistance to passengers disembarking an aircraft.
Passengers with disabilities are not always offered the support needed when traveling on planes. In October 2022, a Jetstar passenger said his wife and an airline staff member had to carry him onto the plane as Darwin International Airport in Australia didn't have a wheelchair ramp. In August 2022, a wheelchair user flying with Jet2 said she felt humiliated after the pilot on board announced the flight was delayed because of a problem related to her chair.
