Airport security takes traveller’s walking stick
A Sydney Morning Herald report says that a Sydney man with multiple sclerosis who needs a stick to walk says he had his stick pulled to pieces by security at Melbourne Airport and told to take it back to the check-in desk because he was not allowed to carry it on an aircraft.
When Richard Larsen told the security officer he needed the now dysfunctional stick to walk, he said he was told “bad luck”.
The 37-year-old software engineer from Petersham was trying to board a Virgin Blue flight to Sydney on Wednesday morning.
Mr Larsen said the security officer laughed at him and a security supervisor told him to get out of the way.
“I felt they were trying to humiliate me,” Mr Larsen said yesterday.
He asked for a wheelchair, hobbled to a nearby seat and had to wait 15 minutes for a Virgin Blue “customer service supervisor” to appear. Mr Larsen said he can “walk” 100 metres on a good day but last Wednesday was not a good day and it was getting worse.
The airline supervisor told Mr Larsen there would not have been a problem if he used a “real” walking stick instead of the carbon-fibre hiking stick he has used in the four years since being diagnosed with the disease.
Mr Larsen said he has carried the stick on many Virgin flights before and flew at least once a month without any trouble carrying it on planes.
He said the Virgin supervisor told him: “I don’t have time for this and you have a plane to catch.”
When Mr Larsen said he had time to discuss the issue with someone who did have time, he said the supervisor responded: “I don’t have to help you”.
Mr Larsen pointed out he did have to help Virgin passengers with disabilities gain access to the cut-price airline’s facilities.
The supervisor ordered a wheelchair and took him to the baggage check-in and the departure gate, but Mr Larsen said the man would not give a clear answer about where he could pick up the stick in Sydney.
In contrast, the Virgin flight crew were “very kind and helpful”, he said.
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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