It was a 10 hour and 40 minute long flight from Tokyo to Delhi and JavedAbidi, the director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) and a paraplegic, was looking forward to getting back home. However, Abidi had to wait an additional one hour inside the aircraft as the airline sent his wheelchair to the baggage pick-up area inside the terminal and had to have it retrieved.
"As an internationally established rule, if a disabled person is travelling with his or her wheelchair, it should be brought to the aircraft for the passenger to exit on that. I make it a practice to not only inform the airline at the departing station but also before we are to land that I will need my wheelchair. Despite taking all such precautions even this time, Air India sent my wheelchair to the conveyor belt and I was made to wait an hour for it," said Abidi.
21/03/13 Times of India
