American Airlines passenger forced to crawl off flight due to humiliating oversight

Daily Mail​

a day ago

A disabled teenager was forced to crawl off an American Airlines flight because she was not given an aisle chair - sparking an internet uproar after her outraged mother shared shocking video of the incident.
Susan Grove, of Rockwall, Texas, shared the jaw-dropping clip of her daughter, Ava, who uses a wheelchair, awkwardly crawling through an empty airplane's narrow aisle on June 28.
'The aisle chair never came, so our special needs daughter had to crawl off the plane,' Grove captioned the TikTok.
An aisle chair is a slimmer wheelchair specifically made to move people with limited mobility on and off airplanes.
Grove claimed she and her husband, Joe, tried to lift Ava up and bring her off the aircraft, but she weighs 150 pounds and 'carrying her down the small aisles is very difficult.'
'This cannot happen to special needs people/families,' Grove asserted, expressing frustration with the bizarre ordeal.
The video garnered nearly 18 million views, with many commenters saying they were horrified her child had to exit the plane in the humiliating manner.
People also urged Grove to contact American Airlines and notify them of the situation, which took place on a flight from Philadelphia to Copenhagen.
'Your daughter is incredible. If my aisle chair didn't arrive, I would still be on that plane,' one woman commented.
'In the whole airport they couldn't find a wheelchair!' another added in disbelief.
'This is horrific. So sorry this happened to you! Unacceptable!' someone chimed in.
While some skeptics questioned why Grove was filming instead of helping her daughter, she clapped back, explaining the importance of documenting the moment.
'I am videoing so this never happens again and, yes, you can hear me encouraging because we had just finished a 7 hour flight (and a horrible 4 days of travel with AA) and I know she was exhausted,' she wrote.
Later in the day, Grove told viewers she had been on three other American Airlines flights over the past four days, and there had been 'several instances' involving Ava.
She contacted the airline's special services and left them a voicemail outlining all of her grievances, including the awful way her daughter had to depart the plane.
A representative called her back, offering her just $75 each for her, Joe and Ava for their troubles.
'I said that that wasn't acceptable,' she explained adding she requested to speak with a manager, but was unable to do so.
The representative said they would be launching an investigation to figure out why an aisle chair was not available.
The next day, Grove posted a third video, chronicling her back and forth with American Airlines.
In an email, a spokesperson expressed apologies for Ava's flight experience and credited Grove with 28,500 bonus miles to her AAdvantage account - the equivalent amount to make up for her daughter's trip. Ava's ticket was also fully refunded.
Grove said she still wanted to speak on the phone with someone from the airline to fully get her point across.
'Giving miles and refunds, sure, that's part of the process, but what occurred showed me that so much more conversations need to happen around these types of situations,' she said.
The comment section of the final video was flooded with people who were severely discontent with the consolidation Grove walked away with.
'I just checked online it calculates it's about 28k pts = 485 usd sue them!' someone wrote.
'theres no way they equated points and a refund to having your daughter crawl on the dirty floor,' another said.