Sheetal Balakrishnan, a senior solicitor at the Justice and Equity Centre (JEC), which represents people with disability in discrimination complaints, said her firm frequently heard from people who had issues flying by air.
“For some people, they say that it happens every time they fly,” she said.
One of the JEC’s newest clients is Chelsea Hopkins-Allan, who said she was left thousands of dollars out of pocket and missed two flights home when trying to travel from Sydney to Albany in regional Western Australia with Qantas.
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She said Qantas gave her conflicting advice about travelling with her scooter and battery, misplaced parts of her scooter, and left her waiting alone for long periods.
When Ms Hopkins-Allan was unable to use her scooter, she became unwell and sat in a toilet stall for an hour until she recovered enough energy to walk the distance across the terminal to figure out how to get home.
She said she was not offered vouchers, food or accommodation, and in the end, a relative was forced to drive almost 10 hours to Perth and back to take her home.
“It felt like a failure at an organisational level,” Ms Hopkins-Allan said.
This story was also covered on ABC Radio.
