An eight-year-old boy was left “stranded” at Gatwick Airport for five hours this morning after his wheelchair went missing.
Tony Hudgell, a double amputee, was flying back from Lapland on a Jet2 flight with his adoptive parents this morning (12 December), where he had been meeting Santa.
But when they arrived back in England, they found his £6,500 wheelchair had not arrived ready for him, even though his parents had pre-booked assistance.
Airlines were already experiencing significant delays following the snowfall last night, and the family had been delayed by 4.5 hours before the incident.
When the wheelchair finally arrived five hours later, the family found that it had been “twisted and bent” in transit.
Tony’s mother Paula tweeted about the experience at 3am, stating that she was “appalled” with her son’s treatment by Jet2 and Gatwick Airport staff.
She said: “Appalled with @jet2tweets @Gatwick_Airport have been stranded for 3 hrs now with no wheelchair as its still on the plane.”
It was 3am, she continued, and the family had received “no help”. She added: “Double amputee no legs as his wheelchair is his legs. Trying to get help or assistance and nothing #gatwickairport #disabled #wheelchair.”
Jet2’s official Twitter account responded that they were “incredibly sorry to hear of your experience” and that they were attempting to “look into fixing this for you”.
Paula continued that the assistance was “five hours too late”, and that a wheelchair user’s needs had been ignored.
She said: “Assistance was booked in advance. Should have been sorted and when it did come out it was put on the conveyor belt and got twisted and bent. Full complaint on its way. Wheelchair cost us £6,500 so cross.”
Tony is a well known disability advocate, who was left with no legs after a horrific attack by his birth parents when he was just 41 days old. Both parents are serving 10-year prison sentences, and Tony has since been adopted.
Through his disability outreach work he has raised over £1.8m for charity.
A spokesperson for Gatwick Airport told The Independent: “We are aware of this awful situation and apologise for the distress caused to the Hudgell family.
“This is unacceptable and we have picked it up as a matter of urgency with the airline, Jet2, and their ground handler, Menzies. We experienced significant disruption last night and had to close the airport for a two-hour period for safety reasons.”
A spokesperson for Jet2 told The Independent:“We would like to sincerely apologise to Mr Hudgell and his family for the delay on receiving his wheelchair and for any inconvenience caused as a result. As an award-winning airline that prides itself on industry-leading customer service, we take matters such as this extremely seriously and are working with our ground handling agent to investigate how this happened.
“We can confirm that the delay was due to Gatwick Airport being temporarily closed due to snow, which meant that the baggage handler experienced severe delays offloading luggage. Unfortunately, this included Mr Hudgell’s wheelchair.
“We recognise that this should not be the experience that our customers receive when travelling with us and can confirm that we have been in touch with Ms Hudgell to offer both our sincere apologies and to do everything we can to rectify this situation.”
The Independent has reached out Menzies for comment.
