Ryanair has been accused of mistreating a teenage boy with no arms or legs last weekend by refusing to allow him to bring his power wheelchair on a flight.
The boy was travelling from Dublin to Liverpool where he was due to watch Liverpool football team lift the premiership trophy.
However, the airline dismissed the accusations as emotive, inaccurate and absurd, saying that it stood over its rules governing wheelchair passengers.
Dáire Gorman (13) was born with Crommelin syndrome, an extremely rare condition, and has lived without arms or femur bones in his legs.
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Last year, a video of him becoming overwhelmed with the emotion at his first Liverpool game went viral and saw him invited back to Anfield to meet the team’s then manager Jurgen Klopp.
On his most recent trip, Ryanair “completely took Daire’s independence away and made him feel like an inconvenience because he used a power wheelchair”, his mother Shelley said.
She booked the trip for her son and husband in February and included special assistance, supplying details of the wheelchair. However, days before the trip Ryanair emailed her asking for the wheelchair dimensions when folded.
“I replied saying it was a power wheelchair and couldn’t fold down,” she said.
She was told it wasn’t possible to take the powerchair as it was too big.
“I ended up ringing special assistance customer services and they asked could he not go without the chair, and refused to take his chair,” she said.
She described this as “extremely upsetting”.
“As a parent, you try and do your best for your children and especially children with additional needs and protect them from negativity – my child needs his wheelchair, imagine asking can he not go without it,” she said.
She said in her initial interactions Ryanair refused a refund, although one was subsequently offered.
It was not needed as her son’s occupational therapist sourced a manual wheelchair for temporary use, but there were further difficulties.
She said her son had to use an “aisle chair” to transfer on to the plane seat, but on the flight he was left until the plane was full, resulting in him being pushed the full length of the plane, “knocking off people” and “losing his dignity [with] everyone watching him transfer on to the seat”.
Ryanair “completely took Daire’s independence away and made him feel like an inconvenience”, she said.
In response, Ryanair said “regrettably, these emotive claims made by his mother are false. She fails anywhere in her complaint to accept that this wheelchair exceeded our well-publicised max dimensions.”
A spokeswoman said this information was “readily available to Ms Gorman when this booking was made and if she had simply complied with them then that would have been the end of the matter”.
Ryanair denied she was told her son could consider travelling without a wheelchair and said it had offered her a refund.
The spokeswoman added that wheelchair boarding is not handled by Ryanair, but rather by the wheelchair service operated by airport operator, DAA.
The statement said Ms Gorman’s “claim that ‘Ryanair completely took Daire’s independence away’ is false and absurd”.
The statement concluded with a recommendation that Ms Gorman “should either comply with our max wheelchair dimensions, or do not make a booking on Ryanair”.
Ryanair did not respond to follow-up queries noting that a key part of Ms Gorman’s complaint was the position of her son’s seat at the back of the plane.
