Dame Tanni Stranded At Dubai Airport

This is awful. I feel terrible for them all. Is Dame Tanni on Twitter at the moment? If you see her there, please go say hi and cheer her up!

Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson says she and 34 athletes were left stranded at Dubai because there were not enough staff or wheelchairs to get them off their plane.

Dame Tanni said the group en route from New Zealand were left for an hour as staff struggled to get them to the terminal using one wheelchair.

Many missed onward flights and may have to stay for a day-and-a-half, she said.

Emirates airline and the airport have been asked to comment.

“There were 35 wheelchair users on the plane coming home. When we arrived at Dubai we were left on the plane for an hour,” said Baroness Grey-Thompson, who is now a BBC commentator and a coach.

“I only had an hour and three quarters to make a connecting flight, some people had less.”

Dame Tanni is due back in the UK later on Tuesday, but some athletes who had been competing in the IPC World Championships in New Zealand could be stranded for a day and a half, she told BBC Radio Wales.

She said the athletes’ wheelchairs are stored in the aircraft hold and, usually, a temporary chair is provided at the airport.

“You kind of feel you’re having your dignity taken away,” she said.

“You’re in a chair that’s not your own.

“It’s like being asked to wear someone else’s clothes. That’s what it’s like sitting in another person’s wheelchair.”

She said the wheelchair athletes were told their connecting flights would wait for them, but that this did not happen.

“It’s frustrating that they weren’t honest with us about what they were going to do and then left someone else to clear up the problem.”

She said athletes are now rearranging their own flights.

She said she believed the problem was caused by a breakdown in communication.

“Because you have to notify the airlines that you are in a wheelchair, they put more staff on, more aisle chairs, and just move everyone quickly,” she said.

“I think although the airline knew, I’m not sure they informed the ground staff so there just wasn’t enough people to get the guys on and off the plane.”

Over her career, the Paralympian smashed a string of world records and won numerous titles including 11 Olympic gold medals at the Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney and Athens games, as well as winning the London Marathon six times.