Elizabeth Sedway claims that she, along with her two sons and husband, were kicked off of their Alaska Airlines flight from Hawaii to San Jose Monday because she has cancer and no doctor’s note clearing her to fly.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153484210382289
“I’m being removed like I’m a criminal or contagious—because I have cancer,” Sedway says in a video filmed on the plane and posted to Facebook. “Does anybody wonder how I got to Hawaii?”
Sedway, 51, suffers from a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. Her post to Facebook describes how the incident occurred:
Today, we were at gate 8 ready to depart on Alaska Airlines for San Jose. An airline employee saw me seated in the handicap section of the boarding area. She asked me if I needed anything. The first time. I said no. The second time, O said, well I might need a bit of extra time to board, sometimes I feel weak. Because I said the word weak, the Alaska Airlines employee called a doctor, she claimed was associated with the airlines. After we board the plane. An Alaska representative boarded the plane, and told us I could not fly without a note from a doctor stating that I was cleared to fly. The video is of us being removed from the plane
“It was shocking. I mean I’ve flown, we’ve flown for five years with this diagnosis, and I felt humiliated,” Sedway told CBS San Francisco.
[adsanity id=12224 align=alignright /]Sedway and her family were then forced to pay for their own lodging for the night. Alaska Airlines would later apologize and has promised to take care of the family’s expenses:
“We regret the inconvenience Ms. Sedway experienced yesterday. Her family’s tickets have been refunded and we’ll cover the cost of her family’s overnight accommodations in Lihue,” Halley Knigge said in an e-mailed statement. “Our employee had the customer’s well-being in mind when we sought the advice of trained medical professionals.”
