Things are seating up.
A Virgin Australia passenger, Shane Hryhorec, was recently booted from his flight all thanks to his wheelchair.
The Adelaide-born flyer — who uses a wheelchair after a tragic swimming accident in 2007 left him disabled — boarded the plane with his service dog and a SmartDrive battery. This is a device that clips onto the back of his wheelchair to help power it forward.
After a “heated” exchange, the 41-year-old man was eventually removed from the plane.
Hryhorec posted a video on Instagram detailing the entire incident where he claimed the airline assigned him a seat that did not fit the battery for his wheelchair.
The disability advocate uses the SmartDrive battery — a rechargeable power pack for manual chairs. Flight attendants came to the man’s seat just as they were about to take off and noticed the battery would not fit under his seat or in front of him.
The attendant then told him he could not put the portable motor in any other seat as it needed to go under his. Hryhorec told the employees that he did not pick the seat with no extra room — it was given to him.
He told the staff it was their job to help fix the problem.
“The problem was the seat Virgin had allocated [to] me. There was nowhere safe to secure my SmartDrive without it rolling around near my service dog. I asked for another solution, including moving seats or securing it elsewhere on the aircraft,” Hryhorec said on Instagram.
Hryhorec was confused, as he claimed he had flown with the device at least four times in the last week and wasn’t sure why it was such an issue this time.
As they were unable to come to a solution, the passenger and his service dog were then “offloaded from the plane in front of everyone,” leaving him “angry, upset and genuinely shocked.”
To make matters worse, the captain got on the PA to apologize.
“We apologize for the inconvenience caused, thank you,” the captain said to the entire plane.
“This is exactly why so many people with disabilities have anxiety about flying,” he said in the post. “It’s 2026. Disabled passengers shouldn’t have to fight this hard simply to get on a plane and get home.”
The Australian advocate told news.com.au that the only seat that he’s able to sit in is a middle seat, as his service dog — Whitney — typically takes the window.
But some folks in the comments aren’t buying it — users flooded the post to offer their opinion on how they feel Hryhorec should have reacted.
“Could he not put it on the seat next to him?” The poster wrote. “He’s sitting in a seat. I’ve had to put things under my own seat. Didn’t affect my leg room at all. She offered him options, and he acted like a Karen holding up the entire plane. He should be embarrassed,” they added.
Another chimed in, “Yeah, I don’t understand if the reason he won’t put it under his seat is [because] it rolls around, why doesn’t he have a bag?”
A third said, “He could have booked his preferred seat for a few extra dollars. But seems that he prefers the attention.”
Virgin Australia told The Post, “We remain committed to providing an accessible and inclusive travel experience for all our guests.”
“While the safety of our guests and crew is always our highest priority, we are reviewing the circumstances of Monday’s experience to understand whether there are opportunities to better identify specific seating or stowage requirements in advance and how our teams can support guests in similar circumstances,” the spokesperson added.
Read the full article here
