Prove you’re disabled, staff told British Paralympian boarding easyJet f light
A BRITISH Paralympian was told by easyJet staff that she had to ‘prove’ her disability before she boarded a flight, she has claimed.
Sprinter Sophia Warner, who has cerebral palsy, said she ‘cried all the way home’ after the incident before a flight from Milan to London Gatwick.
The 43-year- old ran at the London 2012 Paralympics and won medals at the 1998 and 2011 World Championships.
Writing on Twitter, the mother-of-two said a member of staff did not believe she had a disability because she ‘looked completely normal’.
She said: ‘The order to publicly prove my disability incident by easyJet yesterday was beyond devastating. I was told, “You look completely normal. Why do you need help?”
‘I cried all the way home. I don’t even know where to begin with a complaint.’ EasyJet claimed the member of staff was employed by a company called Airport Handling that was hired by the airline, and said it would investigate.
A spokesman said the incident was ‘not handled as sensitively as we would have liked’ but the worker involved had ‘ assured us that he was trying to ascertain what assistance was required to help Ms Warner’.
Miss Warner has previously said that her condition, which affects mobility in her legs and left arm, means ‘my body looks normal, it just doesn’t function properly’.
She gave up her £75,000-ayear marketing job to pursue professional running in the build-up to London 2012 after combining 30 hours a week of sprint training with the fulltime job.
She had been the breadwinner for her family as husband Haydn brought up their children Lucca and Felix.
The incident comes after BBC journalist Frank Gardner claimed last week that he was stranded for over an hour after Heathrow Airport lost his wheelchair after her flew from Ethiopia to London, saying: ‘Just when is the UK’s premier airport going to stop treating disabled passengers this way?’
He accused the airport of having a ‘casual disregard’ for disabled passengers.
An airport spokesman later apologised for the incident.