Loose Women star Sophie Morgan has hit out at airport staff for damaging her wheelchair and leaving her unsafe
(Picture: Publicity photo)Loose Women’s Sophie Morgan has blasted airport staff for damaging her wheelchair and leaving her “unsafe”.
The 37-year-old presenter and disability advocate said she "landed at Heathrow with a bang" after finding her chair had been "damaged".
Morgan, who had flown in from Los Angeles to London’s Heathrow, took to Instagram to share a video of her experience.
In the clip, which showed the damaged chair, she said: "Someone - no one took responsibility - decided to attach my wheelchair and my batec (battery-powered attachment) whilst in transit and they have done so without my permission and completely wrong."
Both items were checked in separately and unattached.
She continued: "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."
Morgan was eventually able to get back into her chair after the batec was broken apart, but said it was not safe, adding she’d found further damage.
She added: "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."
She was inundated with supportive messages from her followers.
One wrote: "Honestly. Sorry this happened, Sophie. It’s just not ok." Another said: "This is getting ridiculous. "I’m seriously starting to think it’s going to take the disabled owning airlines and other businesses before we get decent service."
While a third commented: "Worse nightmare for any wheelchair user. Causes untold stress when travelling.
"Just wrong and in my experience hasn’t got any better over the last two decades. Come on airlines step up!
"It’s just crap and it’s not hard to get it right."
Morgan was 18 and a "very inexperienced" driver when she was involved in a car crash that left her paralysed from the chest down in 2003.
A British Airways spokesperson told the Mirror: “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.”
