Disabled passenger misses flight after Birmingham Airport staff left her at gate and never returned

An 87-year-old disabled woman missed her flight to Spain on Sunday after Birmingham Airport staff “failed on help her on board”, according to her son.

Sheila Cottrill arrived at Birmingham Airport three hours before her Ryanair flight on 1 May, which she was taking in order to visit son Jeremy, who is based in Barcelona.

A wheelchair user, she had booked “assisted passage” help via Ryanair’s website when purchasing her tickets, and expected to be helped through the airport and on to the 3.50pm flight.

Arriving in her wheelchair, Ms Cottrill was helped at first by the airport’s Special Assistance staff, who escorted her near to the gate from where her flight would depart and told her she would be taken to the plane when it was ready to leave.

Instead, she says she was simply left near the gate and had to watch the flight depart without her.

She was then told to return to the airport the following day and instructed to pay £100 for a new flight to Barcelona.

Jeremy Cottrill told the Birmingham Mail he fears the experience will put his mother off visiting him again.

“My mum, who is 87 years old and disabled, arranged a probably last trip to see me who lives in Spain. This was something which wasn’t possible during the Covid pandemic,” he said.

“It’s not the way to treat an elderly disabled passenger who was travelling on her own on her first holiday post-Covid.

“Prior to all of this she said she had lost her confidence in travelling. Now I fear this will be the last time she’ll consider doing so.

“Help is supposed to be there for disabled people. There was a total lack of care and sympathy.”

Ms Cottrill said that airport staff had told her there was a shortage of “Ambulift” drivers to help wheelchair users reach their flights.

“She was then unceremoniously basically taken back to landside and dumped at the ‘Assisted Travel’ desk six hours after arrival at the airport,” her son said.

“She was told to make her own way home and if she wished to travel again to make her own way back to the airport the next day where she could book another Ryanair ticket for the additional cost of £100.”

Mr Cottrill says his mother was one of 14 “assisted passage” passengers who missed flights on 1 May - and claims that, when she returned on Monday, she was nearly forgotten again.

“Tonight, they forgot her again and she had to remind staff to get her to the gate. Then she had to get out of her wheelchair and ‘run’ onto the tarmac and climb the steps,” tweeted Mr Cottrill.

A Birmingham Airport spokesperson told The Independent: “We feel dreadful about the experience Mrs Cottrill had. We are looking into what happened with a view to making things right.

“We had over 110,000 customers travel through between Friday and Monday. Nearly 57,000 were departing passengers and 99.6 per cent successfully caught their flights.”

A Ryanair spokesperson added: “Wheelchair services at Birmingham Airport are operated by OCS, who failed to assist Ms Cottrill to her flight on time for its scheduled departure at 15.50, 1 May.

“As a gesture of goodwill, Ryanair reaccommodated Ms Cottrill on the next available flight from Birmingham to Barcelona the next evening at 20.50, 2 May, free of charge.”