A mother insists that nothing has changed for disabled air passengers in the last 20 years after her son’s postural support chair was not loaded onto a Ryanair flight to Poland – then delivered broken three days later.
Kirsty Diaso flew solo from Dublin Airport to Warsaw with her three-and-a-half-year-old Andre, who has cerebral palsy and is quadriplegic and visually impaired, on Saturday, 28 June.
The former flight attendant and her son had boarded Ryanair flight FR1925 using an OCS ambulift before the vital mobility aid was left in Ireland.
On landing, airport assistance staff boarded the aircraft and told the family that Andre’s wheelchair was still in Dublin.
Ms Diaso claims staff said: “It didn’t get put on the plane, so you’re just going to have to carry him.”
“What I’ve found with disabled children is people just expect you to carry them, but what they don’t understand is it’s not as easy as picking up a toddler who can walk, so you carry them a short while and drop them again,” she told The Independent.
She was forced to carry Andre, two backpacks, two suitcases and a travel cot through Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki airport alone.
The mother and son were visiting Warsaw for a specialised two-week therapy clinic.
Ms Diaso was left confined to an apartment in the Polish capital with her disabled son for three days after leaving the airport without the wheelchair.
She said: “It was just a disaster, it was horrendous; it is so stressful.”
Ms Diaso said she was unable to “even go to the shop to buy water” as a solo traveller with a disabled child she could not carry.
She claims only an adult-sized wheelchair was offered as a seat for Andre while she attempted to fill out a lost luggage form at baggage claim, adding that the ordeal left her son “very stressed, confused and frustrated”.
“To deny someone the right of comfort and dignity is a whole different level – he hasn’t got his legs, the chair is his legs,” she added.
Ryanair flew the chair to Poland on the next available flight. Although the mobility aid arrived in Warsaw on Sunday evening, it was not couriered to the therapy clinic until Tuesday morning.
On delivery, Ms Diaso said the chair’s foot plate was “completely hanging off” and had to be repaired, with the fold mechanism now “sticking”.
Pictures show the right wheel of the postural support chair bent away from its frame.
Fannin, a medical devices company, told Ms Diaso that the €3,000 damaged wheelchair is “unrepairable”.
She called the customer service she received from Ryanair while waiting for the delayed support chair, “absolutely shocking” with “no solutions offered”.
A Ryanair live chat agent advised Ms Diaso to “be patient”, adding they could not “guarantee anything” in correspondence seen by The Independent.
According to the Ryanair customer, the airline closed her complaint on 14 July as the chair damage had not been logged on arrival at the Warsaw airport.
A spokesperson for Ryanair told The Independent that the wheelchair service, which “failed to deliver the wheelchair to the aircraft” at Dublin Airport, is paid for by the airline but provided by the airport.
The airline said, “We sincerely regret this wheelchair service failure at Dublin Airport.
“Once we were made aware of this OCS error, Ryanair put the wheelchair onto the next available flight to Warsaw, where the Airport is responsible for delivering the wheelchair by courier to the passenger.
“We regret the delay in the delivery to the passenger, but this is a matter for OCS, the service provider at Dublin Airport.”
The Independent has contacted OCS for comment.
Ms Diaso, who said that she has seen a lack of assistance and discrimination against disabled travellers for the last 20 years, asked: “Will this still be happening when Andre’s travelling alone at 23?”
She added: “It’s really disheartening as a parent to even think of the future like that.”
The mother called for “something in the version of a small wheelchair” or seatbelts for adult chairs to be provided for disabled children at airports.
Earlier this month, a new review of air travel accessibility in the UK revealed that outdated language and inconsistent training for aviation staff are negatively impacting the experience of flying for disabled people.
The Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group (AATFG) group, established in November 2024 by the Department for Transport (DfT), curated a list of 19 key accessibility recommendations for airlines, airports and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
Issues featured in the review included missed flights, the use of non-inclusive language, broken or lost mobility equipment and an extended wait time to disembark.
The taskforce said that clearer passenger information is key for travellers to book assistance, access airport support services and transport mobility aids independently.
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