"Wow. It’s 2024 and I’ve just had to crawl along the floor of this LOT Polish airline to get to the toilet during a flight back from Warsaw," Gardner wrote on X on Monday night. According to his post, the flight crew informed him that the absence of wheelchairs onboard was part of the airline's "policy."
"If you’re disabled and you can’t walk this is just discriminatory," Gardner commented, adding that he would not fly with LOT again "until they join the 21st century." However, he made it clear that he had no issue with the crew, describing them as "as helpful and apologetic as they could be."
Gardner has used a wheelchair since 2004, when he was shot multiple times during an attack in Saudi Arabia while working as a BBC correspondent.
LOT Polish Airlines responded to the incident in a statement to Polish private news outlet TVN24. The airline apologized for the "discomfort caused by the lack of a wheelchair onboard" and expressed regret over Gardner's experience.
The airline added that wheelchairs are currently available on their long-haul Boeing 787 Dreamliner flights and said they are "actively testing solutions" to equip short-haul flights with onboard wheelchairs soon.
(jh)
Source: TVN24