Saskatoon family confused after WestJet cancels tickets due to wheelchair's weight
CBC
You can hear the lilting of piano music echo throughout the church where 14-year-old Georgia Nataraj takes piano lessons.
She loves playing, but is even more interested in travelling, she says.
She was looking forward to a trip to Mexico with her family in February. Their plane tickets were booked. But then the airline cancelled them, saying Georgia’s wheelchair is too heavy.
“I was a little bit sad that we weren’t going to go if we couldn’t find a way to get there,” Georgia told CBC. “Because I was getting really excited about it.”
Georgia has flown with WestJet from Saskatoon before, using the same wheelchair.
She was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at just 18 months old and uses a 300-lb wheelchair with special features designed to help ease tension in her muscles and spine. The chair allows her legs to stretch out, and can lift her into a standing position or lay her down.
Her parents told CBC that without her chair, Georgia’s muscles would be aching during a long day of travel without the ability to stretch her body.
They took a WestJet flight from Saskatoon with her and the chair earlier this year with no problems, they said.
Her parents said the airline told them over the phone that handling such a large wheelchair is unsafe for the chair and the staff handling it, and that Saskatoon’s smaller aircraft don’t have the capacity to handle it.
Their only options are to catch a flight to Mexico out of Calgary or Toronto with WestJet, or switch to another airline.
They said they like that WestJet has discounts for travellers with disabilities, and confused about why the rules seem to have changed.
“As recently as eight months ago we were flying out of WestJet Saskatoon with Georgia’s chair,” said her father, Richard Nataraj. “ And so to hear that they’re now refusing to take her chair on was disheartening.”
WestJet declined CBC’s request for an interview, but provided a written statement saying these rules were made public in June 2024 and have been in place since as early as 2023.
Georgia has travelled in her chair on a WestJet flight as recently as April.
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