Written by Martha Williams, Dailymail.Com
May 18, 2024 14:47, Updated May 18, 2024 15:18
A plus-size travel influencer has claimed she was discriminated against by airport staff who refused to push her wheelchair because of her weight.
Jaylin Cheney, 27, recently described her experience with a wheelchair assistant on the jet bridge after landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
“My ordeal at Seattle Tuck Airport will shock you,” Cheney, who lives in Vancouver, Washington, said on TikTok. As always, Ms. Cheney, who can walk, detailed how she requested wheelchair assistance on a recent flight.
However, Ms. Cheney claims that as she was being removed from the plane, the employee assigned to help her realized that he was helping a plus-size woman, not a petite passenger, and began to walk away. are doing.
The travel influencer said the employee made a comment about her size as she left with her wheelchair. Cheney, who had previously demanded free extra seats on overweight planes with help from thinner passengers, said the ordeal left her breathless.
“I really needed a chair and I asked her to sit down, but she blatantly ignored me and kept walking,” Cheney complained in a dramatic TikTok. She is shown walking down the aisle of an airplane.
“Then I had to walk down one of the longest jet bridges I've ever encountered and she wouldn't stop,” the 27-year-old continued her rant.
By the time Mr. Cheney was finally allowed to reach his wheelchair and sit down, his lips were white, his oxygen levels were low, and he nearly passed out, Cheney claims.
According to Cheney, the employee discriminated against plus-size women by assuming she could walk and not pushing her onto the jet bridge.
Cheney said that “remaining silent is no longer an option” regarding the “discrimination” she has faced. She said: “If you have faced something similar, you are not alone.”
She continued, “Discrimination is real and I don't want anyone else to go through something like this.”
Users in the comments section were quick to show their support for the 27-year-old. “I'm so sorry honey,” one person wrote.
“I will send out positivity! No one should be discriminated against because of their body or ability,” another person wrote.
Cheney also used that experience to push airlines to offer free extra seats to overweight passengers who might not fit in standard airplane chairs.
He says the “fit passenger” policy gives fat people basic human rights, but previously, fares for thin passengers were reduced to cover the cost of paying for the additional needs of overweight passengers. acknowledged that it may be necessary to raise prices.
This is the travel influencer's first time traveling without oxygen, and she uploaded a TikTok documenting the experience.
Cheney uploaded a video to her TikTok channel that shows her proudly sitting on the plane without any breathing equipment.
She explained to her followers that she previously needed refills of air to be able to breathe comfortably in the pressurized plane cabin.
At one point in the video, Cheney holds up his seatbelt and smiles, demonstrating how far it will stretch.
Cheney, whose TikTok account has more than 135,000 followers, expressed her concerns as a large flyer in the background of the video.
Dramatic music plays and Cheney thinks: “What should I do if there is an emergency on the plane?”
Then she asks, “What if I make an emergency landing?”
But she stopped and said: “No, forget it.” No matter what they say, no matter what it looks like, travel is for everyone. ”
The video then shows Cheney passing through the airport gate in a wheelchair and boarding the plane.
Cheney is then shown sitting in his seat, demonstrating how loose his seatbelt is.
The TikTok ends with a close-up of the plus-size influencer's grinning face.
In her caption, Cheney explained her flying background, detailing how she has relied on “supplemental oxygen” during her flights for the past four years.
“It all started back in 2019 after I was hospitalized for a suspected stroke,” Cheney wrote.
“As it turned out, I had pulmonary hypertension and have needed oxygen therapy ever since. Traveling is no longer the same.”
“From chasing waterfalls in Hawaii,” she said, “everything changed a lot.”
After doing intensive research, the influencer came up with a portable oxygen concentrator.
“I shared my discovery online, thinking this would be my new normal.”
But Cheney thought portable oxygen concentrators were a “no-walk in the park.”
She said using the device was “expensive, stressful and downright scary”.
Her recent flight was the first time in four years that she had flown without an oxygen concentrator, and the experience left her “anxious and frightened.”
“But guess what? I tried it and it turned out better than I could have imagined,” she wrote triumphantly.