Sunwing travel ordeal leaves woman without custom wheelchair

An Ontario woman is speaking out about her ordeal travelling with Sunwing after she said the airline repeatedly mistreated her and then lost her $7,000 custom wheelchair.

Rose Finlay, from Bowmanville, Ont., travelled to Cuba with her husband last Tuesday. What they thought would be a getaway to reconnect as a couple without their two children turned into a "trip from hell."

"From the moment we landed in Cuba I was treated so poorly and humiliated both by the Cuban airport staff and the representatives of Sunwing," she said in a Facebook post that has been shared more than 30,000 times since it was posted on Thursday.

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The first incident happened after the couple arrived in Cuba. Finlay said her wheelchair, which was checked at the door, was taken away from her upon arrival. She was told that it would come out on the carousel with the bags.

"It came out dead last," she wrote on Facebook. "I sat humiliatingly crooked and bunched up in a rickety old wheelchair that was provided by the airport."

While at the resort, Finlay said, she developed a pressure sore from the mattress and decided to return home. However, she said she couldn't find Sunwing representatives who were supposed to be at the resort to make the arrangement.

For their return flight on Thursday, the couple were moved from a direct flight to an indirect flight that was two hours longer. When Finlay called Sunwing to explain that she had a sore and extended travelling time would compromise her health, she said a representative offered no explanation as to why she was taken off the direct flight and that no one in management could take her call.

Wheelchair lost

When checking in for the indirect flight, she was told to get out of her wheelchair because it had to be checked as luggage.

"I was instantly humiliated again and began to cry, in front of three planes of Canadian travellers," she said. "There was no way that I was going to check my custom wheelchair that is essentially my lifeline and my only support for independence in my activities of daily living."

After a six-hour flight from Varadero — including a stopover — the couple arrived home in Toronto. But there was no wheelchair.

"My heart sank," she wrote. "I instantly felt sick to my stomach."

Without a wheelchair, Finlay said, she is now stranded and bed-bound.

"I'm isolated from my children as I can't get out of bed to be with them after a week away from them," she said. "My husband has now been burdened with being my legs, meaning he has missed work to assist me."

Finlay added she is shocked that a Canadian company let this happen to a customer.

Sunwing apologizes

Sunwing said that the wheelchair was off-loaded in error during the flight, but it would be returned to Finlay on Saturday.

The airline blamed the error on "inter-departmental miscommunications."

"Loss of essential equipment is extremely rare, and in light of this we have already initiated a full investigation into how this could have occurred," Janine Chapman, vice-president of marketing, said in a statement Friday afternoon.

Chapman also said the airline would pay for the costs of a replacement wheelchair while they work to return her own. It also offered a full refund for the family's trip. 

"We are extremely sorry for the significant inconvenience that this has caused the customer and have reached out to her to express our apologies," Chapman said.

Finlay said she received an email from Sunwing almost three hours after the airline issued the media statement. She added that the refund doesn't compensate for the cost of her humiliation.