Update from Jet 2

We want to thank everyone who has messaged and supported us since I published my blog about the way Jack and our family were treated by Jet 2 last week.

As a family we decided to focus this week on doing fun things with Jack to reinforce to him the many things that he is good at. He had a great day in the lab with Dr Pisconti learning about the work you help us fund through Joining Jack and of course he was very proud of the 12lb fish he caught with Josh Charnley yesterday.

The day after the incident at Split airport Jack was very down and not the usual happy Jack that we all know and love, being made to feel like he was a problem in front of so many people undoubtedly had a negative impact on him and it was heartbreaking for us to hear him talk about how much he hates his life. I talked to Jack about what he wanted me to do about this and he said he wanted to make sure this never happened to any of his friends with Duchenne.

I have spoken to Jet 2 at great length to explain how negative experiences like these affect people living with disabilities. They agreed lessons will be learnt from what happened to Jack and have agreed that they will do the following in response.

‘We will provide training to our third party ground handling agents on disability and inclusion to ensure they meet with our own internal high standards.’

As I explained to Jet 2 I had spent almost an hour on the phone before we went on holiday explaining to them about his medical condition, booking on his mobility scooter and requesting his special assistance. The airport at Split had not received this information.
I have suggested to Jet 2 that they send their customers requiring special assistance confirmation they have booked the service. I really hope my feedback is taken on board as it will give passengers the proof that they may need if things go wrong and hopefully it will lead to passengers being treated with more respect and dignity.

Jet 2 said, ‘On the initial error, whilst we are confident that this error was an isolated incident and was a genuine human error, we have put in place an additional supervisory check to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. We are always reviewing our procedures and will consider any technological changes which could be made to mitigate this, however, for the time being we have the additional human check. I have taken your feedback on board with respect to sending a confirmation when special assistance has been booked, and I will discuss this with the management team responsible for the special assistance team.
We take our customers experiences extremely seriously. We don’t wish for any of our customers to have a poor experience, and in this case it was even more disappointing given Jack’s condition and the impact that we understand this has had on him and your family.'

I hope that by us speaking out we may have created changes that will hopefully benefit other passengers flying with disabilities.

Jet 2 have agreed to donate £5,000 to the Virgin Money Page I set up in preparation for us cycling from London to Paris next year for the Duchenne Dash when we will be raising funds for Joining Jack and Duchenne UK to advance research and the treatment of everyone living with Duchenne.

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?pageId=956268