Sophie Morgan is appealing to the "humanity" of airlines and taking her fight straight to the top after she was left stranded when airport staff destroyed her wheelchair.
The presenter and disability advocate, 37, said she "landed at Heathrow with a bang" after finding her chair had been damaged.
"It's incredibly distressing because it's your legs," the Loose Women panellist exclusively tells The Mirror.
"If the headlines read, airlines break thousands of passengers legs every year. Can you imagine the outcry?" she said.
Sophie was just 18 and when she was involved in a car crash that left her instantly paralysed from the chest down.
The spinal injury changed her life forever but Sophie became one of the first female disabled television hosts in the world and now uses her platform to fight against discrimination.
She is now launching her RightsOnFlights campaign where she will be lobbying the government to implement a number of imperative legislative changes within the aviation industry in the UK.
The horrifying incident may sound shocking to some but Sophie says "this happens all the time" and what happened to her is "not an isolated incident".
"If you're a wheelchair user, this is not new news, which in itself is shocking," she explained.
Sophie had taken a flight back to the UK from Los Angeles when she was waiting to be reunited with her wheelchair which was being kept in the hold.
Typically, when wheelchair users and those that depend on a mobility device fly, they arrive at the aircraft door and their wheelchair or mobility device is taken away and put down in the hold.
Sophie then relies on an aisle chair to be transferred to her seat on the flight - which Sophie says "throws up a lot of problems because you have to really give away your independence at that point".
She explains: "If you imagine our wheelchairs are our legs you can imagine the frustration and anxiety that comes with having that removed from you, and then having to depend on the airline staff to look after your needs whilst you're on the flight."
And not everyone is able to use an aisle chair so that means they can't fly at all.
"There's a lot of discrimination when it comes to air travel," Sophie acknowledges.
Sophie's wheelchair has a battery powered attachment to convert her wheelchair into a trike - which she removes before putting in the hold.
So waiting to be reunited with her wheelchair after an 11 hour flight, Sophie was horrified to see it had wrongly been forced together as airport staff had attempted to connect the two pieces with "no skill and no expertise and also no permission to do so".
They then had to be forced apart so Sophie could use the wheelchair which she found "really stressful".
"It's incredibly distressing because it's your legs. This was not just a luxury item that if you lose it it's a bit of an inconvenience. This is the difference between being able to move and not being able to move," she explains.
Sophie knew this wasn't an isolated incident and so used her platform on social media to share her distress.
Taking to Instagram sharing a video of the chair, she said: "Someone - no one took responsibility - decided to attach my wheelchair and my batec (battery-powered attachment) whilst in transit (they were checked in separately, in two parts, unattached) and they have done so a. without my permission and b. COMPLETELY WRONG.
"It took over half an hour to 'break' them apart, all that time I had to sit on an aisle chair which was NOT safe and I didn't know if I would be able to get back into my chair."
She continued: "And what was I told to do by British Airways? Send an email via the website.
"This has GOT TO STOP. Thousands of chairs are damaged every year by airlines. It's just #planewrong."
The post was met with a flurry of support from Sophie's followers, with one person replying: "This makes me so angry. As a physio we encourage our clients to go live life, travel but this just highlights why so many wheelchair users are afraid to travel. Showing such little respect for an individual's belongings is just unimaginable and unacceptable."
Reflecting on the response to her posts, she says: "I wasn't intending to start an airline and travel accessible airline travel campaign.
"But there needs to be one and actually there are various campaigns happening in different parts of the world at the moment for people trying to fight this fight."
Sophie says that when this has happened before the airline will usually apologise and sometimes offer compensation but says more needs to be done.
"There are processes in place, but ultimately if the headlines read, airlines break thousands of passengers legs every year. Can you imagine the outcry?" she said.
"You certainly wouldn't fly with that aircraft airline would you? But that's what we have to put up with. And the sad fact is, the more these stories get out, the less disabled people want to fly and it's becoming a real problem."
In other forms of transport there have been strides ahead for disabled travel with ramps on buses and spaces on trains for wheelchairs.
But access to air travel for disabled people has stood still.
"The fact is, there has been some change made to integrate us. But that hasn't happened on an airline. And you have to ask why. And that's what we're doing with this campaign and the long end goal, the ultimate long haul goal is to get a wheelchair onboard an aircraft," Sophie says.
She admits that an overhaul of airline travel for disabled people is "a long way away" but says there are short term changes that we can make now.
As a first step, Sophie is now asking the government in a letter to the Prime Minister to give the Civil Aviation Authority more power to enforce fines so that there are consequences for when airlines either do damage to wheelchairs, leave disabled people on board for too long or don't provide the right assistance.
"Any civil rights movement, any human rights movement is about being asked to be considered a human being the same as anyone else to ask for equity to get to equality," she explains.
Sophie says she's appealing to the "humanity" of the airlines in her new campaign.
"We're asking them to consider us as humans and to work out how to help us feel safe and comfortable and independent when we fly," she says.
Eventually, Sophie would like to see aircraft redesigned with space in mind for a wheelchair user - with accessible toilets and comfortable space for a wheelchair.
"In many ways the airlines can only do so much with what they've got," she admits.
"We need to redesign to rethink about how we integrate everybody and design for everybody."
She continues: "That's the ultimate but that's a long way away and it's a lot of work which is going to happen, the work is going to be put in and and I know that I'm not alone in working towards this goal."
Sophie acknowledges her privilege and is lucky to have a spare wheelchair and a direct line to a company that can fix her devices as quickly as possible.
She also has the "energy" and "support" around her to take on this fight and use her platform - but she is still a paraplegic.
"I have a lot to deal with. My disability is a full time job in itself so taking on a campaign as well as holding down a full time job... it's a huge ask," she admits.
"That's sometimes why I wonder why we don't get as far as other marginalized groups when we're trying to fight for our voices to be heard, because actually, it takes a lot. It takes a lot out of us," she says.
"There's a deliberate reason why I grew a platform because discrimination like this has been happening to me since the beginning of being disabled. And I knew I hated being voiceless which is why I went into television, it's why I decided to pursue the career I have," she says.
"I can shine a light on what it's like to live like this the good and the bad. And at the moment, I'm just trying to shine the light on the bad because we need to make change there."
When contacted by the Mirror, BA said: "We're extremely sorry for Sophie's experience and we're investigating what happened as a matter of urgency. We've been in contact with Sophie to sincerely apologise and to resolve the matter with her directly.
"We carry hundreds of thousands of customers who require additional assistance each year and we work hard to provide help and support them throughout the whole journey. It's extremely disheartening when things go wrong, and we don’t underestimate the impact this has.
"We're committed to ensuring we deliver a consistently good service, and we'll be working closely with Sophie and our dedicated accessibility teams to discuss how we can continue to make improvements to ensure a great flying experience for everyone."
