Jetstar forces wheelchair passenger to crawl across tarmac

[Nuthinondaclock]

It not about you.

Why should Jetstar have to make their turnarounds longer and as a result increase their airfares for a minority? Why? Why should I be forced to pay more for someone else's convenience??

It’s a crook policy and for the small number of times where a wheelchair passenger chooses to stay in their own chair to the gate it’s not going to make a scrap of difference to the fare that Jetstar passengers pay. There is no reason why the transfer to an aisle chair at the gate rather than at check in should make any difference to the time taken to board an aircraft if handled correctly. A wheelchair passenger boarding is always going to slow things down a little bit but that is just something that has to be accepted in a civilized society. Hey, old people and people with small kids slow down boarding. Do you think we shouldn't make allowances for them as well?
It’s easy to say;

They are not being treated as sub-human, or demeaned in any way

when YOU CAN WALK. Obviously Mr. Fearnley did find it demeaning. As non-paraplegics I think very few people can appreciate it from a paraplegics’ perspective and ultimately it's not whether YOU find it demeaning that matters. I reckon if you asked most paraplegics what they thought of Jetstars policy they would agree with Mr. Fearnley. You might not like how he went about drawing attention to this but that doesn’t make the policy any more correct. Likewise saying he didn’t have to travel with Jetstar also doesn’t make the policy right either. I think many are allowing their dislike of how Kurt handled the situation to cloud their assesment of the policy. You can think he's a goose and still not agree with the policy you know.

I’m no bleeding heart but I’ve found the shallowly hiden lack of humanity or empathy for people with a disability on this post astounding. As an example from p.j.m.;

.....people automatically jump to defend him just because he's a cripple.

Fair dinkum what cave did you crawl out of? I reckon if you called Kurt a cripple to his face you'd be the one sitting on your arse.
If you look at any of my previous posts you can see I’m not one of those who just bags Jetstar for the sake of it. For any airline I think this was poor form.