The European ultra-low-cost airline Wizz Air has taken flak for removing an injured Ukrainian veteran who lost a leg in Russia’s invasion of his homeland from a flight that was due to depart Tel Aviv bound for Poland.
Wizz Air claims the man, who had been in Israel receiving treatment for injuries sustained during the war, had to be booted from the flight because he did not have an escort with him.
The man was trying to get to Poland to visit his family and was travelling with a bag full of gifts for his loved ones, but after using crutches to stand up at the front of the plane for an hour and a half, Wizz Air denied him boarding and made him disembark.
Video footage taken by another passenger shows the man, who uses a prosthesis and crutches, exit the plane via airstairs without assistance.
In a statement, Wizz Air said the decision to offload the man was “difficult but necessary” and “taken with the passenger’s safety in mind”.
“We apologise for the upset caused regarding a passenger on our Tel Aviv flight to Warsaw recently,” the statement continued. “Safety is our number one priority, and it is our crew’s responsibility to ensure that all passengers are fit to fly or are accompanied by someone to support them.”
“If there is any indication that a passenger has a medical condition that might put them at risk while flying, we are obligated to deny boarding.”
The European Air Safety Agency (EASA) lays down rules for what are referred to as ‘special category passengers’, and there are certain situations in which a disabled passenger might need an escort or medical clearance before they are allowed to fly.
Wizz Air says it requires disabled passengers to have an escort if they are unable to lift themselves without assistance, leave their seat and reach an emergency exit without assistance or communicate with crew on safety matters.
Other airlines have similar guidelines.
Wizz Air was unable to say why the man did not meet these criteria, but the airline later said that it “would never discriminate against someone on the grounds of a disability and regularly fly passengers with prosthesis.”
The airline’s explanation has provoked an angry response, with many people slamming Wizz Air’s treatment of the man on Twitter. The airline provoked further anger when it said that it provided the man with water and “somewhere to sit” after he had been booted from the flight.
As Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Wizz Air was accused of ‘abandoning’ its staff in the country. A pan-European transport workers union said the airline ignored official warnings and carried on operating in Ukraine until the last possible moment.
As a result, Wizz Air found itself with four aircraft and around 200 employees stuck inside Ukraine at the outset of the fighting and had to employ a private security force to extract its employees from the country.
By the time the war began, every other European airline had suspended operations in Ukraine, and even Ukrainian carrier SkyUp wasn’t parking its planes in its home country in the lead-up to the invasion.
