SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines has reportedly issued a partial refund to an Australian student who levelled discrimination accusations against the national carrier, after she was prohibited from sitting in the emergency exit row seats she had paid for due to her disability.
The student, Isabella Beale, is a congenital amputee without a left forearm who doesn’t require assistance. She told the Australian publication ABC that she was asked to move seats from the emergency exit row, on two separate SIA flights she took in January.
SIA policy prohibits pregnant women, children under 15, those with infants, and those requiring “special assistance” from occupying emergency exit rows. Seating in these rows is only available to those who are physically and mentally able to perform the necessary functions, such as opening the emergency doors, in the event of a crisis.
But it does not seem to be this policy that Ms Beale is decrying. She is, instead, unhappy with the way SIA staff communicated with her.
She told ABC: “I understand that there might be policy around this, I’m not saying I need you to sit me in emergency, I’m saying I need you to treat me like a human being.”
Revealing that she was left humiliated by the way an SIA air stewardess asked her to move seats during one flight from Australia to England, Ms Beale said: “All of a sudden an air hostess approaches me and, in quite a loud tone and quite, like frantic and rushed, she just says, ‘Get out, get out of that seat now, you need to get up’.”
“I’m a bit taken aback and I switch seats with my partner, which I think is going to be fine as long as I’m not directly next to the emergency door … everyone is looking at us at this point, and can overhear the conversation. [She] goes, ‘No, get up you have to sit in the row behind’.
The 23-year-old added, “I had a little cry just because it was such an affronting thing to happen … it was very humiliating and upsetting.”
Her return flight to Australia did not fare better, despite her proactive attempts to avoid the issue. Ms Beale consulted with SIA staff members at the check-in desk about where she could sit and was assured that she could still sit in the exit row of the plane.
But again, just before takeoff, airline staff allegedly spoke rudely to her and asked her to move. This episode was 10 times worse, according to Ms Beale.
She said, “At first it’s one woman and she comes up to me…it’s almost take-off time and she goes ‘Show me your ticket. You have to move’. Without speaking politely, without acknowledging me as an individual.
“She spoke to my partner and she spoke to my partner’s mother, it felt like there was an assumption that I couldn’t understand.
“And I don’t know if that assumption came because I’m a person with a disability or if she assumed that because I had a physical disability, I had an intellectual disability, which wouldn’t matter either way … you still speak to me. I’m still a person.”
When she asked for an explanation as to why she had to move seats, SIA ground staff boarded the flight. Ms Beale recounted, “Then the second ground staff person comes on, and by this point there’s two air hostesses, two ground staff, people in the entire flight watching this entire interaction occur,” she said.
“The manager gestured at my missing limb and just said ‘Well, the problem’s obvious, the problem’s obvious’, and continued repeatedly to say that in front of an entire flight of people.
“I was really upset and hurt and felt like I was being vilified for my disability in front of all of these people, and they were all in a rush and all raising their voices and yelling.”
SIA has since apologised for the “distress or embarrassment caused by the request to move,” in a statement. Assuring Ms Beale that it is investigating the matter and will better train its staff, the airline acknowledged that the decision on where the young woman could sit “should have been made either at check-in or during the boarding process.”
It has also refunded the extra cost of the seats in the exit row.
Asserting that no one should have been treated as she was, Ms Beale wrote on Instagram: “Discrimination and vilification of people with disabilities is humiliating and unjust. We deserve to be in public spaces. We deserve to travel. We deserve to have our humanity respected.”
She added: “No airline policy gave @singaporeair the right to treat me as though I was a problem rather than a person.”