Disabled woman sues Ryanair

Disabled woman sues Ryanair after husband is forced to give her fireman’s lift to get her on plane
By Andrew Levy
Last updated at 4:55 PM on 14th April 2011
Comments (55) Add to My Stories Humiliated: Wheelchair-bound Jo Heath, 57, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was left sitting beside the Ryanair plane after a hydraulic lift failed to turn up
A disabled woman successfully sued Ryanair after her husband was forced to carry her onto a flight using a fireman’s lift.
Wheelchair-bound Jo Heath, 57, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was left sitting beside the plane after a hydraulic lift failed to turn up.
After waiting for 30 minutes she and her husband Paul, 56, asked the crew and pilot for help but they refused in case they hurt themselves.
In the end, Mr Heath had to sling his ten stone wife over his shoulder and clamber up the stairs on his own as ground staff, crew members and passengers looked on.
Mrs Heath has now won £1,750 compensation for the humiliation she suffered after Ryanair breached its contract by failing to provide the assistance she had ordered and contravening disability discrimination laws.
In a damning verdict on the budget airline, a judge said all it ‘was interested in was getting the plane airborne in time’.
Mrs Heath, a mother-of-two from Milton Malsor, Northamptonshire, said: ‘When I was carried onto the plane, everyone was looking over their seats to see what was happening.
‘It was humiliating and distressing. They treated me like an inconvenience, not a passenger. I was made to feel like it was my fault.
‘I’m not terribly impressed with the payout but it’s not a question of money. It’s about standing up for people with disabilities so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1376905/Abandoned-tarmac-Disabled-woman-left-sitting-plane-Ryanair-wouldnt-fetch-lift.html#ixzz1Jt0KvvQ5