‘Not again!’: BBC journalist Frank Gardner left stuck on plane at Gatwick

theguardian.com:

The BBC journalist Frank Gardner has expressed outrage at being left on a plane after it landed at Gatwick.

The security correspondent, who uses a wheelchair, was stranded on the aircraft after flying to the West Sussex airport with Iberia Express on Thursday night.

A passenger with restricted mobility died at Gatwick on 15 June. He fell while going up an escalator after leaving an aircraft without a helper.

Gardner has been left on planes at UK airports several times in recent years.

During the latest incident, he posted an image on Twitter from inside the aircraft with no other passengers in sight.

He wrote: “FFS not again! Just back from exhausting week covering Nato summit in Madrid and quelle surprise, I’m still stuck on the plane at Gatwick.

“Iberia crew are gone and a new crew has come onboard.

“Just WHY are UK airports so consistently crap at getting disabled people off planes?”

He added: “It never happens abroad, only in UK.”

Once he was able to leave the aircraft, Gardner wrote: “Off the plane now – only a 20-minute delay which is mild – but ground handlers said ‘nobody told us there was a disabled passenger onboard’.

“Airline, Iberia, insist they did.

“All in all, so tedious and boring!”

A Gatwick spokesperson said: “We apologise for the delay Mr Gardner experienced on this occasion.

“We have been working closely with our assistance provider, Wilson James, to establish the reasons for