A 67-year-old woman who has trouble walking was reportedly left in her wheelchair after her return flight from Chicago to Detroit was canceled.
Olimpia Warsaw’s son Claude Coltea told CBS Chicago that she had flown to Chicago to attend her ex-husband’s funeral.
On the way there, Warsaw’s luggage was lost. And on her return, she was abandoned at the airport, according to a story on Yahoo.com.
Her son reportedly dropped her off at her gate, checked that her flight was on time, and then headed to catch his own flight when he felt his mother was safe.
But when his mother’s flight ended up getting canceled, no one helped her get to a hotel, her son told CBS.
Warsaw has Parkinson’s and diabetes and has trouble walking.
“All we wanted was someone to pause and say, ‘You know what, can we just make sure this human being is safe and then we can all go home,’” Coltea told CBS. “Not one person did that.”
After a porter was assigned to help Warsaw, Coltea claims they took his mom to the front of Chicago O’Hare International Airport and then left because their shift was over.
Coltea said Warsaw has trouble communicating and wasn’t able to find a way to the hotel on her own.
“She actually had to find a random passenger to help her out just to go to the bathroom because the porters had already left for the night,” Coltea told CBS.
The reaction on social media was swift.
Airlines in the U.S. are really messing up. So much for customer service, common sense, and common human decency. Is the Golden Rule dead?
American Airlines passenger left in wheelchair overnight at airport after flight was canceled | Fox News https://t.co/tZ5gAzLpwV
— Dave (@D_opus) December 2, 2018
American Airlines told Yahoo.com that its service team “is deeply concerned about what happened” at the airport.
“This is not the level of service we aspire to provide to our customers, and we apologize to Ms. Warsaw and her family for letting them down,” the airline said.
American is continuing an investigation into the incident and will refund Warsaw’s ticket.
