Woman told she looked too sick to fly

A CORK couple in their 60s were off-loaded from an Aer Lingus aircraft in Tenerife because a flight attendant insisted the woman looked too sick to fly — even though a doctor had cleared her earlier.

Alan Jenkins and his wife also claim they were insulted by Spanish airport staff when they asked for help.

The couple had been enjoying a holiday on the Spanish island when Ms Jenkins took ill. Her husband brought her to a doctor, who gave her aspirin to enable her to travel home.

When the couple got onto their flight, Mr Jenkins asked the flight attendant whether it would be possible, when the flight reached Cork Airport, to get a wheelchair for his wife if the plane did not pull into a stand with an airbridge.

He said the woman said that should be fine, but that it could be checked halfway through the flight.

“She then looked at my wife and said ‘What is wrong with her?’” said Mr Jenkins. “She asked did she have bronchitis or pneumonia and I said I did not know but the doctor had given her aspirin and cleared her to fly.”

He said the flight crew then talked between themselves and decided Ms Jenkins could not fly.

“Without getting a doctor to see her, they told us at 9pm they were taking us off the flight,” said Mr Jenkins.

“They pointed to a baggage handler standing outside the plane and said ‘he will look after you’. They said he would take us to the ground staff. I pointed out they had no ground staff in Tenerife and they said local airline staff would look after us. They then said someone would ring from Dublin later to check how we were and then frog-marched us from the plane.”

Mr Jenkins, who himself has serious health concerns, having suffered a stroke and heart attack in the past year as well as suffering from cancer, said they were left to find their own way into the airport.

When they approached a desk to ask for help to get accommodation, they were told there was no phone.

He claimed that when he asked one man at the airport desk for help, the man said he did not speak English before telling another worker in Spanish that “this Irish couple have been put off their plane”. Mr Jenkins said he speaks Spanish, having lived in Tenerife for five years, and was able to understand the woman’s reply was derogatory about the couple’s plight.

Two days later, having found accommodation for themselves, the couple managed to get back to Ireland on rival Ryanair’s flight — at their own cost.

Mr Jenkins contacted a solicitor who wrote an official letter of complaint to the airline. They have still received no response.

Last night, Aer Lingus confirmed it had received a legal letter in relation to the Jenkins’ experience which it said it was processing. It said it needed to review the relevant cabin crew report before it could comment on what transpired.