Heathrow has apologised unreservedly after the BBC’s security correspondent was stuck on a plane for nearly two hours before his wheelchair was recovered after it was wrongly tagged.
On Saturday, Frank Gardner tweeted that he had been on an empty plane for anhour and a half after landing because his wheelchair had been lost.
“Believe me, I’m as bored of writing this as you are of reading it,” he tweeted, in a message that has since been shared thousands of times. He eventually updated followers to say that after 100 minutes he was finally off the plane.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow airport, apologised to Gardner.
He said that the wheelchair was not tagged properly and they would ensure that similar mistakes did not happen again.
In an earlier statement, the airport said that it “apologised unreservedly if” the service Gardner received fell short. The response was criticised for the inclusion of the word “if”. ITV’s Robert Peston said:
Why does @HeathrowAirport not understand that if it really wanted to apologise to the brilliant @FrankRGardner for losing his wheelchair and keeping him on plane for 100 mins its statement would not include the word “if”. pic.twitter.com/qct723fQxF
— Robert Peston (@Peston) March 24, 2018
Holland-Kaye admitted that this initial response was a mistake. “Ninety minutes is too long to stay on a plane and we need to work better with the airline and handlers to make sure that does not happen,” he said.
On Sunday, the chief executive spent an hour with Gardner at Heathrow as the journalist explained the problems disabled passengers face at airports. Gardner tweeted to say these included hi-lifts failing to turn up and wheelchairs getting taken off into the terminal. He said more thoughtful attitudes were needed towards disabled travellers.
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Holland-Kaye said: “There are three things we need to give a good service to Frank and people in his situation. We need to know they are coming and should have specialist equipment available ... we need fully trained people at the gate, and hi-lift equipment … and we need the wheelchair. In this case it was not tagged properly and there was confusion when Gardner arrived at Heathrow.”
He added that his focus was on getting it right for passengers and they had invested in improving the service.
Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, tweeted to say: “Heathrow is world’s worst for wheelchair-users. Frank Gardener’s (sic) anger is entirely justified.”
Gardner said: “I spent what I hope was a very productive hour meeting the chief executive and we went over a number of issues ... I said ‘if nothing else comes out of this meeting but I am able to change it so that it becomes policy that wheelchairs go straight to door or plane upon landing then I have achieved something’.”
