One for all, and all for one: lawsuit of Chinese wheelchair users banned from flight ‘is for rights of all mainland’s 85 million disabled’
Two disabled passengers told they could not board Juneyao Airlines domestic flight as they were not accompanied by able-bodied person and ‘unable to take care of themselves’
Two Chinese disabled passengers have sued a mainland budget airline that stopped them boarding a flight because they were not accompanied by an able-bodied person and were “unable to take care of themselves”, mainland media reports.
The lawyer for the two wheelchair-bound passengers, who are paralysed from the waist down, told a lawsuit at a Shanghai court on Wednesday that the case against Juneyao Airlines was a fight not only for their right to travel, but also the right to travel of more than 85 million other disabled mainlanders, news website Thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.
A verdict in the case will be given at a later date.
The court was told that the two passengers were told they could not board the airline’s flight from Sanya, on Hainan Island, to Dalian, in Liaoning province last November, the report said.
Despite the two passengers’ protests, staff working for the airline then cancelled their tickets and refunded their money.
To reach their final destination they had to take a later flight with another airline to Beijing, and then catch a high-speed train to Dalian.