A disabled man has received, perhaps, the worst humiliation of his life after he was forced to crawl up a plane to board it.
Hideto Kijima
Hideto Kijima, a 44-year-old wheelchair-bound plane passenger was forced to crawl up a set of stairs in order to board the aircraft.
According to Metro UK, Hideto Kijima was told by workers for Japan’s Vanilla Air that he would not be allowed to fly if he could not climb the stairs without assistance.
As the small airport on the island of Amami did not have a lift, he faced being stuck on the island instead of getting home to Osaka.
Kijima who is paralysed from the waist down, wrote about the ordeal on his blog.
He described how he got out of the wheelchair, resisted staff who tried to stop him and slowly pulled himself up the stairs.
He said: ‘I just had to ignore them and keep moving up, or I could not go back to Osaka.
‘I’ve never thought I would be refused to fly for not being able to walk. It’s a human rights violation.’
One of his friends helped him to the top, where he was put into a wheelchair and taken to his seat.
Vanilla said it has apologised to Mr Kijima and new lifts are being installed.
Mr Kijima said he has visited 158 countries and used 200 airports, and has never been rejected before.