Budget airline Ryanair is today challenging a British court ruling that it unlawfully discriminated against a disabled man by charging him to use a wheelchair at an airport.
Mr Bob Ross (54), who has cerebral palsy and arthritis, was charged £18 sterling at Stansted Airport to take him from the check-in desk to the plane while travelling from London to France in 2002.
At London County Court in January this year, he successfully argued that the airline should have provided a wheelchair free of charge and the court ruled that Ryanair had acted unlawfully.
Mr Ross was awarded £1,336 compensation, which included the cost of hiring the wheelchair, the cost of the journey and £1,000 for injury to his feelings.
Ryanair, which has taken the case to the Court of Appeal in London, has denied it charges any wheelchair passengers for assistance.
The airline said Mr Ross was not travelling with a wheelchair and was on his way to the South of France on a £10 ticket.
The cost of providing the service was £18 - almost double the price of his ticket - which Mr Ross paid to the service provider at Stansted, not to the airline, said Ryanair.
A spokesman said: "Ryanair strongly believes that the British Airports Authority, the world's most profitable airport operator, should provide wheelchair assistance free of charge just like the vast majority of other airports in Europe."
The airline said it was appealing not because it had a dispute with Mr Ross but because it wanted to force BAA Stansted to accept its responsibility to disabled passengers using the airport facilities.
The British Disability Rights Commission, which took the case against Ryanair on behalf of Mr Ross, wants Ryanair to pay compensation to a further 35 disabled people who have complained about being charged for the use of wheelchairs.
PA