Southwest Airlines dismantled basketball players' wheelchairs, leaving them stranded for hours as they tried to reassemble them

17.04.2024 - 15:11 / insider.com / Airlines

Members of a disabled basketball team were left with "chaos" and hours of delay after Southwest Airlines dismantled dozens of their wheelchairs on a recent flight.

Athletes traveling to the National Wheelchair Basketball Championship said they landed at Richmond International Airport, Virginia, last Wednesday to find a mass of chair parts, with little organization in getting them reassembled.

Some of the chairs were damaged, they said.

The pilot and a stewardess were "just kind of getting off the plane like, 'all right, whose wheel is this?'" Myranda Shields, who manages the team's social media, told BI.

To make matters worse, family members who tried to help were told they'd be breaking airport protocol, and that police would be called out, Shields said.

Wheelchair basketball teams typically travel with two chairs each —their sporting ones and their everyday ones, Shields told BI.

So when the Ability 360 Phoenix Wheelchair Suns and two other teams flew to Richmond, it meant fitting around 50-60 chairs, along with all the luggage, on board.

It is not uncommon for airlines to disassemble wheelchairs on flights, but according to the Department of Transportation, they are required to return them in good condition and "in a timely manner."

The teams had asked the airline not to take the wheels off their chairs, but staff assured them they would be properly reassembled, Shields said.

But Brigitte McIntee, the mother of one of the players, said on arrival there were no Southwest staff at the terminal to help organize the mass of chair parts, none of which had been tagged.

Family members had to take charge, matching dozens of wheels to different frames and reassembling them, she said.

It "was just complete chaos," despite the attempts of the pilot and a stewardess to help out, Shields told BI.

As a result, the teams were stranded on the plane for two hours, and didn't leave the airport until around 11 p.m., four hours after landing, she said.

In a statement to BI, Southwest Airlines said that there had been a delay in its staff reassembling the chairs, and that it had reviewed the situation and was addressing it. It also said it had been trying to fit the wheelchairs onto one of its smallest aircraft.

"We apologize any time we don't meet customer expectations and have a long history of caring for our customers," it said.

The airline told CBS 6 that there had been a breakdown in communication between its staff.

Athletes are calling on airlines to address chronic problems in how they handle wheelchairs.

If a long wait on a plane is inconvenient for an able-bodied person, it's potentially disastrous for someone with disabilities, who may not be able to access bathrooms as easily, McIntee told BI.

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