The mother of a disabled teen girl has lashed out at Jetstar after the airline took away her electric wheelchair before boarding a domestic flight in Sydney.
Billie Boele, aged 12 at the time of the March 29 flight, has a physical disability but is able to move independently while using her electric chair.
Jetstar's policy is to take electric wheelchairs at check-in and replace them with thinner, non-electric wheelchairs that can fit down a passenger plane's aisles - making for an uncomfortable time between check-in and eventually being seated on the plane.
"Billie was prepared [to have to move into a manual wheelchair] but as soon as we put her in it, she burst into tears and was inconsolable for about five minutes," her mother Heike Fabig told the Daily Mail.
As Billie sobbed Heike posted a photo of her on social media, quoting her as saying: "They literally just took my legs away".
"She's 12, she doesn't want to be strapped up and driven around, just like no 12-year-old wants to be strapped up and driven around," Heike told the Daily Mail.
"She was unsafe, uncomfortable, frightened. The whole time I had to leave my hand on her chest. We wedged her between the table and my chair while we ate, so she felt like she wouldn't fall out."
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Heike said when they checked in, Billie was told she had to switch wheelchairs then as it was an unreasonable amount of work to get her daughter to the door of the aircraft and push the wheelchair back to where luggage was being loaded on to the plane.
Heike has also written an open letter to Jetstar CEO Gareth Evans over the weekend complaining about their experience.
A spokesperson for Jetstar told the Daily Mail it takes "the safety and comfort of passengers who require specific assistance very seriously".
"We are looking into Ms Fabig's and her daughter's experience to better understand what happened,' they added.
The spokesperson is also quoted as saying "the travel could have been smoother".
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