Vanilla Air " No ACAA or ADA here so You will have to Crawl Up the Airstairs.."

A Japanese budget airline apologised yesterday for forcing a man in a wheelchair to crawl up a set of stairs to board his flight. Mr Hideto Kijima, 44, was returning earlier this month to Osaka from a vacation in Amami, a small island off southern Japan, when a Vanilla Air employee told him that company safety rules banned anyone from carrying him up the stairs, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The carrier, the budget arm of All Nippon Airways, did not have a lift at the small airport to move disabled passengers from the tarmac up to the jet's door.

Mr Kijima, who is paralysed from the waist down, said in a blog he was forced to crawl up the stairs using only his arms, which took two to three minutes.


Vanilla Air said yesterday it has apologised to Mr Kijima.
"We're sorry that we caused him that hardship," a company spokesman told AFP, adding the carrier has since made it mandatory to have lifts for disabled patrons at that airport.