\u201cWicked\u201d star Marissa Bode spoke out against Southern Airways after she was allegedly stopped from boarding a flight because of her disability.<\/p>\n
The actress and disability advocate took to her TikTok on Thursday, where she claimed, \u201cI was denied boarding a flight because I\u2019m disabled.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish that were clickbait. I wish that were false, but that is what happened,\u201d she said. \u201cI also hate that this kind of turned into an accidental series on my page.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m making this for my other disabled peers out there,\u201d she continued. \u201cDo not fly Southern Airways. I had never heard of Southern Airways before, it\u2019s extremely, extremely small. And they think because they\u2019re so small that disabled passengers couldn\u2019t possibly fly with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Bode went on, she explained that she was set to fly on the airline as she had a speaking engagement in Pennsylvania. She said that, before the flight in-question, she asked crew for help in locating her virtual ticket \u2014 as she was having trouble finding it. Bode was then allegedly told that she was not allowed on the plane because of her disability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two people at the gate look at me, and they are like, \u2018Can you stand?\u2019 And I said, \u2018No,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd they said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, but because of that, we\u2019re going to have to deny you boarding.\u2019 They proceeded to tell me all the planes within this airline have stairs to get on the plane. Wild. Never heard of that before.\u201d<\/p>\n
She then slammed the airline for treating disabled people as \u201can afterthought,\u201d adding, \u201cWhy, knowing that disabled people exist, which y\u2019all clearly often forget, do you choose not to update your planes? And I was like, \u2018This is blatant segregation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the airline\u2019s contract of carriage does specifically note that \u201ccustomers must be able to ascend and descend several steps to board the aircraft,\u201d noting that aircrafts that hold \u201c28 or fewer passengers\u201d are not required under the Air
Carrier Access Act \u201cto provide mechanical lift devices for enplaning or deplaning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Bode defended that her manager spoke with the airline beforehand, noting \u201cthey fully assured that I would be set for my flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement to TheWrap, a spokesperson for Southern Airways said, \u201cMarissa Bode\u2019s experience is understandably upsetting, and does not reflect the standard to which we hold ourselves. We are investigating the incident, and will take all appropriate action, including making any necessary improvements to our processes and training. We have reached out to Ms. Bode to offer support and will work to address her concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Bode also issued an update after her video went viral, confirming she had since heard from a representative at Southern Airways, who she said was \u201cmortified\u201d and \u201capologetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are doing an internal look on things on how this happened,\u201d she noted. \u201cThey\u2019re doing the right thing, in terms of, how to rectify it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch both of Bode\u2019s video statements above.<\/p>\n
The post \u2018Wicked\u2019 Star Marissa Bode Claims She Was Denied Boarding on a Flight Because of Her Disability: \u2018Blatant Segregation\u2019 | Video<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWicked\u201d star Marissa Bode spoke out against Southern Airways after she was allegedly stopped from boarding a flight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,235545,75,129717,235544],"class_list":["post-628684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-disability-advocate","tag-entertainment","tag-marissa-bode","tag-southern-airways"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}