According to this article in the Gloucester Citizen, a deafblind man has accused the airline Ryanair of throwing him out of his seat for ‘safety reasons’ only to replace him with a drunk passenger.
Extract:
A DEAFBLIND man has accused Ryanair of throwing him out of his allocated seat because of his disability – then giving it to a drunk man.
Charles Turrell, 52, was left in tears after a cabin crew member banned him from taking his second row seat due to ‘health and safety’.
He said: “I sat in the same seat on my flight out without any problems. I feel I have been discriminated against because of my disability.”
Mr Turrell has a condition called Usher’s Syndrome. He was born profoundly deaf and gradually loses his sight.
He said: “It was wrong that another person was able to take my seat when I had reserved and paid for that seat. To add insult to injury, the woman allowed a clearly drunk passenger to sit in the same seat. Why was a severely drunk passenger able to take a seat in that row but not a disabled person?
“I was so upset by what happened that it left me in tears during the flight.
“To make matters worse, when we challenged the crew, they said they would move the drunk man to another seat before landing.
Read the full article here: http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Deafblind-man-says-Ryanair-chucked-seat-drunk/story-19550940-detail/story.html
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Nick Sturley
July 24, 2013
Really pathetic and typical of Ryanair. A drunk passenger is worse than a deafblind passenger. I’ve been on several different airlines and health & safety was never an issue. What sort of health & safety were Ryanair were referring to in his case? He chose his own allocated seat for his own benefit, so it’s really stupid that he had to be asked to move to another seat for a drunk. What next, Ryanair?!?
Robert Mandara
July 25, 2013
Both Ryanair and Easyjet have refused to allow me to sit in the emergency exit rows of their aircraft because I’m deaf. I don’t think it’s fair but there’s no use in arguing with air stewards if you intend to reach your destination. I’m quite sure that if my hearing aids were covered with long hair or a hat then the discrimination wouldn’t have occurred.
Deafnotdaft
July 25, 2013
I think we need to hold fire on this until we’ve heard what Ryanair have to say when they’ve looked into it. Some seats on every flight have to be occupied by people who are able to take on responsibilities for helping evacuate the plane if there’s an emergency. There’s obviously a strong requirement for those people to be good communicators. On the other hand, it looks as though Ryanair handled it very badly.