Paralysed woman ‘forced to drag herself up plane aisle’ to use toilet on Albastar flight

A disabled woman claims she had to drag herself up the aisle of a plane to use the toilet and accused the airline of not offering help or appropriate seating arrangements.

Jennie Berry, from the UK, is paralysed from the waist down, she explained in a TikTok video that has since gone viral. She has been using a wheelchair for about five years.

Ms Berry accused staff on a flight operated by Albastar, a Spanish airline headquartered in Palma de Mallorca, of refusing to either let her use an aisle chair on board or offer her an empty seat at the front of the plane.

In the caption of the video, which has been viewed more than four million times, she wrote: “Here’s how I had to get to the toilet on my recent Albastar Airlines flight.

“They told me I should wear a nappy and wee in my seat instead of having an aisle chair onboard…”

The clip shows her dragging herself backwards up the aisle of a plane before her partner helps her into the toilet cubicle.

The start of the video shows Ms Berry putting herself onto an aisle chair, a wheelchair used to get to her seat on the plane.

Her clip states: “I’ve recently been on holiday and this is how I get on a plane, usually using an aisle chair.

“This is what they got me onto the plane with, but unfortunately on my flight they didn’t have [an] aisle chair on board.

“So the flight with Albastar didn’t get off to a great start. As you can see they wouldn’t let me sit anywhere near the front of the plane even though there were spare seats.

“Then when I asked if I could go to the toilet, they’ve said no that they wouldn’t help and they just proceeded to keep serving the drinks, which was great.”

The video shows a flight attendant serving items from a trolley ahead of Ms Berry while she struggles to reach the toilet.

Jennie Berry’s partner helps her into the cramped toilet cubicle

(@wheelie_good_life/Jennie Berry)

She continues in the clip: “So this is when I actually got to the toilet itself.

“This is my partner helping lift me onto the toilet. Obviously this is quite a small space so it’s a bit of a struggle.

“But when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. This is what we had to do.

“One staff member quite rudely told me that disabled people should just wear nappies on board, which I find bizarre that people think that that is the solution to this scenario.

“They said there wasn’t enough room for an aisle chair even though they had room to have drinks trolleys, perfume trolleys.”

Comments were switched off for the video, but TikTokers made their views heard in the comments of Ms Berry’s other clips.

Many viewers left comments saying that the way she was treated was “inhumane” and “degrading”.

The Independent has contacted Albastar for comment.