A disabled passenger said he was “kicked off” his easyJet flight after the cabin crew “overheard” his conversation.
Barry Dobner, 79, was flying to Athens from Manchester to celebrate his 80th birthday with a two-week-long Greek getaway - but his holiday was put on hold when he was removed from the plane just minutes before the aircraft was due to take off.
Dobner - who has been a wheel-chair user for 18 years since surviving a life-changing stroke - alleged that a crew member overheard that he had packed a portable urinal bottle in his carry-on luggage.
“A stewardess walked by and she said ‘excuse me, do you have a urinal bottle?’. My wife said yes, in case of emergencies. She said ‘hang on a minute’.
Barry Dobner, 79, was flying to Athens from Manchester to celebrate his 80th birthday with a two-week-long Greek getaway
PA
“She came back and said ‘can your husband walk to the toilet’?
“My wife said ‘no, my husband can't walk at all’. They said ‘you have to get off this plane’. My wife asked why and they said ‘because he can't walk to the toilet’,” Dobner said.
“The whole plane was standing up watching what was going on. You can imagine how that made me feel,” he added.
The passenger retold how he and his group disembarked the plane and had to be retrieved by a friend to drive them back home.
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Sharing how the incident affected his confidence, Dobner said: “I've always been a happy-go-lucky chap but this has knocked me back a bit.
“I feel like just an object, I'm not a person any more. My self-respect had gone right down.
“I've flown six times since my stroke and it's always been fine before this. They knew I couldn't walk when they put me on the plane.”
His wife added that the incident particularly “upset” her because “treating a disabled person like that was appalling” and “just ludicrous”.
The couple claimed that they had lost out on the £2,000 that they had spent on their birthday extravaganza.
Dobner said that he had flown six times since his stroke and it had "always been fine before this"
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An easyJet spokesperson told The Independent: “We are very sorry Mr and Mrs Dobner and their companion were unable to fly as planned with easyJet.
“We are in touch with Mr Dobner and his party to apologise for this error and to refund them in full for their flight and provide them with denied boarding compensation.
“As an airline, we are committed to making easyJet accessible to everyone.
“EasyJet carries around one million passengers requiring some form of assistance each year and our research shows that 87 per cent of easyJet passengers who require this are satisfied with the services we provide.”
