Making A Stand
So, once again the Herald Sun have provided us with another non-story – this time it’s all about Jetstar and their EVIL policies relating to wheelchairs:
Jetstar forced Kurt Fearnley off wheelchair, says Paralympian
PARALYMPIAN Kurt Fearnley crawled the Kokoda Track and he ended up doing the same through an airport terminal – and even to a bathroom – after Jetstar staff refused to allow him to use his own wheelchair.
Fearnley, 28, was told the airline’s policy was to take some wheelchairs from disabled people to check in as baggage and offered him a less-mobile wheelchair. He did not want to be pushed around the airport but wanted free use of his own wheelchair.
When they refused, he said he made a “choice” to refuse also – instead jumping on to his brother’s shoulders to be carried part of the way and crawled the rest of the way himself.
“I made a choice and that was to make my own way to the gate,” Fearnley said.”I jumped on to my brother’s shoulder then I crawled. I even crawled to the rest room because we had to wait about one and a half hours for the flight. I crawled to the bathroom and I crawled on to the plane,” he said.
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Now, I’m first to admit that I’ve never flown Jetstar, I’m not in a wheelchair and I’m completely unfamiliar with their policies regarding such circumstances.
That said I’m going to go ahead and say that this Kurt Fearnley fuckwit can go fuck himself with a chainsaw.
Taking a look at the Jetstar website, I couldn’t actually find any decent information regarding a wheelchair policy apart from this:
Jetstar provides customers with a wheelchair in which to transfer at check-in. Jetstar customer service staff will assist in the transfer into the wheelchair, using Jetstar’s approved transfer method of slide boards and slide cloths.
As I said before, I don’t know much about all this, but I’m going to speculate that this policy of having wheelchair-bound passengers transfer to a Jetstar-provided chair is due to the already-limited space on board the aircraft (with their policy of squeezing as many people on as possible) and not having some ridiculously huge fucking wheelchair fucking up things for everyone else on board. I’m guessing that Fearnley’s chair fell into the “ridiculously huge fucking wheelchair” category or similar.
But that’s not the fucking point.
The point is the article is titled “Jetstar forced Kurt Fearnley off wheelchair”. Fucking bullshit. The airline didn’t force him to do anything. All they requested that he do was transfer from his own wheelchair into another. It was his own fucking stubborness and arrogance that forced him to crawl. Nothing to do with Jetstar there.
Also I’m having some difficulty understanding how a fucking airline-supplied wheelchair can be “less mobile” than the one this fuckwit owns. It’s a chair with wheels. It moves. Am I missing something here? Based on the wording of the article the only difference between the two was that the supplied chair made it difficult or impossible for Fearnley to propel himself. If this was in fact the case would it have been that fucking difficult for him to deal with it for the relatively short period of 90 FUCKING MINUTES it took waiting before boarding the flight?
On the times I’ve booked with Virgin Blue there’s been a small checkbox to tick to state that you aren’t in need of any form of special assistance or don’t fall under certain categories such as Fearnley (ie wheelchair bound or a fucktard). The Jetstar website is being a cunt right now and I can’t test it out, but I’m guessing that the same thing applies there. Meaning he probably would’ve been informed of this procedure at the time of booking the flight.
The sad thing about the whole affair is that Jetstar will probably refund the fare or sling him a few free travel vouchers, which will only enable this behaviour in Fearnley again and probably others. If Jetstar had any fucking brains they’d tell him to fuck right off and ban him from flying with them again.
Next time you decide to crawl the Kokoda Trail, do me a fucking favour and die during the trek.
“I said there is not a chance that I am going to sit there and be pushed through an airport,” he said.
“An able-bodied equivalent, a normal person’s equivalent would be having your legs tied together, your pants pulled down and be carried or pushed through an airport.”
Jeezus, what a drama queen. I’m all for giving disabled people the technology and help to be self reliant, but the attitude of a select few really shit me. Like any offer of help is a personal insult towards them, it scares people off daring help a disabled person who is having trouble.
I’d like to know more about the chair that Jetstar offered. If it is so shit that it cant be moved by the user at all, then he has a right to complain (although the crawling like a baby is completely his own doing). But it sounds like it didn’t meet his high standards, if so poor diddums. Flying is annoying, get used to it.
The thing to remember too is that the purpose of the chair was probably just to facilitate an easy transfer from it to the seat in the plane and v/v. Something that probably wouldn’t be possible in his normal chair. For fucks sake, it’s 90 mins of his fucking life.
Plus it’s Jetstar. Budget fucking airline. If he wants better service pay double or triple the fare and get something better. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if the wheelchair policy is the same all round the place.
Fuck him, fuck his wheelchair and fuck his entire family.
I just knew you would run with this story. Seems like it normal procedure was not followed, but sheesh, the arrogance of the guy.
I’d like to get the security footage of him crawling around the airport, speed it up and apply Yackity Sax.
A good-looking, intelligent guy. Disciplined, brave and talented. Just fricking crawled a trek that many die in completing. That is one of our national symbols.
But people still feel sorry for him, and women still don’t want to marry/have sex with him.
This is anger and frustration looking for an excuse to vent (or I’m not a completely-unqualified psychologist).
Although, there probably should be decent-quality wheelchairs available. Why should the guy have to rely upon a staff member to get to the bathroom?
He is a hero after all…
In my opinion Heroes don’t fly with Jetstar.
A hero? How? Because he did something that he CHOSE to do that was particularly tough?
In my book a hero could well be defined as someone who is placed in a dangerous situation where they might perform some act of note. For example, running into a burning building to save someone.
His brother was there at the airport. He had all the assistance he needed for the 90 minutes between check-in and boarding. I had a bit of trouble decoding the Jetstar website, but I think that if you were in a wheelchair and would be using one of these transfer chairs you had to have a carer on-hand.
I dunno, having his disability and doing all that striving and such-like. Over years and years. That’s pretty heroic if you ask me.
I’d rather run into a burning building with the chance of dying than have no legs.
Crawling in the dunnies? Ewww. There’s always puddles of piss on the floor. Hope he washed his hands.
Maybe it didn’t bother him given that he probably sits in his own piss all the time anyway.
I work at Melbourne airport, and the Jetstar wheelchairs are not ones that you can sit in and wheel yourself around. Think of a dining table chair with wheels the size of a kids pram. They’re fucked. Seriously fucked.
While usually I think you’re fucking hilarious, on this one, I have to disagree. Jetstar are wankers, and I back this Fearnley dude 100%.
Ok, but am I right about where I say the point of these transfer chairs are to make getting in/out of the seat on the plane relatively easy, and all that jazz? I’m guessing too that these chairs are designed to navigate the aisle of an aircraft easily.
C/D?
Exactly. They are designed specifically with aisle width in mind. Technically, i’d say they weren’t even designed as a go-around chair. Just aerobridge to seat. Qantas and Virgin have exactly the same chairs. Qantas, however, have no issue with the passenger using his/her own wheelchair to get around with till boarding. Then they take it off them, put it down the chute and into baggage. Some Jetstar cunt was being exactly that. A cunt.
And to a comment above, since when did the world soley rely on rules and regulations? Half the rules in the present time are so fucked we have no choice but to do our own thing! I think this Jetstar case is a perfect example of a dick who couldn’t use his own brain and make a fair and just decision, based on the facts at the time. Call a supervisor, do something. Don’t get all spastic and say “Well, these ARE the rules!”. $50 says Mr Jetstar has driven over the speed limit once or twice in his life!
Virgin is also quite happy to take the person’s wheelchair up to the door of the jet whether it be on an aerobridge or via the tarmac and nifty little hoist up to the top of the stairs. Then they transfer to the aisle chair. The wheelchair is then stowed last/first off so it is waiting at the door of the aircraft again.
Saying that, I’ll forgive the VB Cabin Crew member who nearly flipped my wife out of the aislechair on a flight to Sydney a few years back. :)
Quaintarse’s ground crew in Brisbane weren’t very organised on disembarking a flight from Adelaide back in November. We got off last as usual to find the wheelchair wasn’t at the door of the aircraft as had been requested in Adelaide. So my wife ended up in the aisle chair, ready for the trek from the furthest end of the terminal only to find a ground crew member willing to offer a ride in one of the golf carts to get us to the carousel quicker. Got down stairs (ok, lift) and found the wheelchair waiting on its lonesome in the oversize baggage pickup area without any supervision … yay $5,000 piece of equipment ready for the taking.
Should also mention in the case of Adelaide, my wife got as far as the Supervisor’s desk with her own wheelchair before being transferred to an aisle chair for 30mins.
This is very similar to the wheelchair Jetstar would have offered this guy…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Boston_-_airport_wheelchair.JPG
I’ve flown with Jetstar once and I wasn’t impressed with the service. I didn’t bitch about it and voted with my cash. I vowed never to do it again and I suggest Mr Fearnley do the same.
Personally if I had some hot female air hostess wanting to take me to the Toilet I wouldn’t bitch about it.
I’ve never flown Jetstar, but I do know someone who works for them. Quite hilarious the stories he tells about rich people who can’t get seats on normal airlines (or are just too cheap to pay for them) and go on to complain incessantly about the difference in level of service.
Best thing for Fearnley to do is concede that he is a whiny little bitch and move on.
>>Also I’m having some difficulty understanding how a fucking airline-supplied wheelchair can be “less mobile†than the one this fuckwit owns<<
Trust me, it makes a huge difference. It took nearly 5 months before my wheelchair was specially modified to my height and size, for example. I don’t know the full facts of this case, but I can certainly say from other people I know in wheelchairs that the large majority of airline issued wheelchairs are bigger than those wheelchairs personally belonging to an individual.
I’m pretty sure there is much more to this one than we realise; one possible (in my opinion likely) negative example of being in a different wheelchair for 90 minutes would be the development of a pressure sore. Those bastards can sometimes take only 20 minutes to get and yet months to heal. Oh, not to mention one adapts to their own wheelchair and as such 90 minutes in a completely different chair could cause massive balance problems not only leading to pressure sores, but also falling out of the actual chair (this happened to me once in a hospital issued stock standard wheelchair)
a completely different chair could cause massive balance problems not only leading to pressure sores, but also falling out of the actual chair (this happened to me once in a hospital issued stock standard wheelchair)
But were you going through the drive through of a bottle shop at the time?
Judging by the pic TheLaundryLady provided above, if I were to sit in that thing I would have a pressure sore within 20 minutes, no joke. And my wheelchair is smaller and easier to navigate.