United Airlines apologizes for wheelchair mix-up after man crawls off plane

United Airlines says it was a crewmember’s mistake that began the unfortunate chain of events that caused a passenger with cerebral palsy to decide that his best option for getting off a plane and to a restroom at Washington’s Reagan National Airport was to crawl up the aisle and out the door.

United Airlines has apologized to D’Arcee Neal, the Washington, D.C., resident who last week found himself waiting for almost half an hour for an airport wheelchair attendant to arrive with an aisle chair to help him off a plane.

Neal told CNN that his disability made it too difficult for him to use the airplane’s restroom and that, after the five-hour flight from San Francisco, he really needed to find an accessible restroom in the airport.

But a mix-up with the airline’s request for the wheelchair meant that Neal was being told to just sit and wait.

When he couldn't wait any longer, Neal, by then the last passenger on the plane, got out of his seat and crawled up the aisle and off the plane, where an attendant had finally arrived with a chair.

According to United Airlines spokesman Rahsaan Johnson, when Neal’s plane arrived at DCA from San Francisco there had been a representative waiting at the door with an aisle chair, but a flight attendant made a mistake by telling the rep that no aisle chairs were needed for any passengers on that flight.

The rep moved on, most likely to help another passenger on another flight, and there was a delay in getting someone back to the gate once a United crewmember realized the mistake and called for assistance.

“It was certainly an unfortunate mistake and this was not the experience the customer paid for or the one we had lined up for him,” said Johnson. He added that it was a crewmember on the flight who passed along the details of the incident to a United Airlines employee at Washington National Airport, who then contacted Neal to apologize.

“They had a chat with Neal, asked what they could do and offered him a $300 travel voucher, which he accepted,” said Johnson.

According to CNN, Neal is a long-time disability advocate for nonprofit groups who now works for the federal government and had been in San Francisco to meet with representatives at Uber about accessibility policies.

Neal has said he’s pleased with the airline's response and told CNN, "I just hope they learn from this."

Harriet Baskas is a Seattle-based airports and aviation writer and USA TODAY Travel's "At the Airport" columnist. She occasionally contributes to Ben Mutzabaugh's Today in the Sky blog. Follow her at twitter.com/hbaskas.