Wheelchair banned - Paralympian crawls through Australian airport

SYDNEY - Paralympic champion Kurt Fearnley said Tuesday he was so angry at having to leave his wheelchair at the check-in counter he crawled through Brisbane airport to reach the departure gate for his flight.

Fearnley, who earlier this month won his fourth New York Marathon title, said the alternative to crawling was to have the ignominy of being strapped into a trolley and pushed to the boarding gate.

Jetstar, the budget airline subsidiary of national carrier Qantas Airways, said it was investigating Saturday’s incident.

Fearnley, who won medals at the Paralympics in Athens and Beijing, said the equivalent for an able-bodied person “would be having your legs tied together, your pants pulled down and be carried or pushed through an airport”.

He said all other airlines he had flown with except Jetstar allowed private wheelchairs all the way to the boarding lounge, where disabled passengers could switch into what are called aisle chairs belonging to airlines that can negotiate cramped cabins.

The 28-year-old, disabled from birth, said crawling was more dignified than being pushed by a stranger.

“I had a choice and that was to make my own way to the gate,” he said. “I even crawled to the rest room because we had to wait about one and a half hours for the flight. I crawled to the bathroom and I crawled onto the plane.”

Fearnley said people who are disabled do everything they can to limit that disability.

“Mobility is something they hold closest too,” he said.

Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes, himself wheelchair-bound, said he fully understood the decision Fearnley had taken.

“He was given the choice of sitting in a wheelchair which he couldn’t use or control for an hour-and-a-half or crawling to a plane by himself.”