BBC News - Beth Rose
If you use Twitter you may have seen Frank Gardner tweet his frustration at being left on a plane at the weekend after Heathrow Airport failed to deliver his wheelchair to him when he landed. It's a problem lots of wheelchair-users have faced - but what causes it?
Ben Furner experienced the same thing just weeks earlier at a different British airport. He was left on a plane while someone went in search of his mobility scooter.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority, the UK's regulator, the responsibility lies with the airport to provide assistance to passengers when they are on the ground. That includes retrieving wheelchairs from the hold and returning them to passengers who have landed.
"Unfortunately, the delay Mr Gardner experienced was a result of the airline's ground handling agents struggling with a colleague shortfall."
