Hi there everyone,
I was looking forward to traveling in February to Los Cabos Mexico, after enduring a difficult winter here in Vancouver. Checking in on that early Sunday morning was exciting until I found out that I will be seated at the back of the plane in row 51. I use a wheelchair and I have never received a seat at the back of a plane. The Air Canada check in agent although pleasant was unable to sit me anywhere else explaining that it was a full flight. The flight was operated by Air Canada Rouge. It was a Boeing 767 aircraft.
The airport staff transferred me onto the aisle chair and wheeled me all the way to the back of the plane. I sat at the back of the plane cramped, cold and I was not happy at all…
Upon landing at the Los Cabos airport I waited patiently in my seat at the back of the plane. The Mexican Airport Staff that were coming to assist me had no training on how to transfer me safely onto aisle chair. They had no idea what they were doing. They were acting like they didn’t care about their job. They inexcusably were going to carry me down a flight of stairs from the back of the plane, since they thought wheeling me back to front of the plane seemed impossible! One of the Air Canada flight attendants screamed at them in horror. She said to these guys that if I got to this seat with the aisle chair, then, they can easily figure out how to get me back to the front of the plane to disembark. Mexico is inaccessibility at its finest. After the longest 35 minutes ever, I was at the front of the plane, unstrapped in the aisle chair and got transferred back onto my wheelchair, Thank goodness for that.
Landing in sunny Mexico didn’t seem so wonderful that morning. However, things slowly did get better when we arrived at our all-inclusive resort . A week later, while getting our boarding ticket from Air Canada I got a seat at row 43!! Really? Come on Air Canada, that’s pathetic. However the flight attendant knew of the previous fiasco that I had endured, and the flight crew assured me that I would get better seats. I did. I was given Row 13, in Economy class. Isn’t 13 an unlucky number? The Air Canada Flight Attendant gave me a couple of Kit Kats, chips, a free cheese platter and a warm blanket. I think they can do better than that. Don’t you?
