‘Get a grip!’: Disabled BBC correspondent slams Heathrow after long wait to disembark plane

At the end of a flight of over 13 hours from Singapore to London Heathrow, the BBC’s Frank Gardner was kept waiting for over an hour and a half for assistance after all the other passengers had left the aircraft.

The security correspondent has used a wheelchair since he was shot six times in an Al Qaeda gun attack in Saudi Arabia in 2004.

The British Airways Boeing 777 arrived from Singapore at 6.45am, and parked at a remote stand at Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 5.

Other passengers walked down the stairs to waiting buses. Normally ground staff working for Wilson James, a contractor used by Heathrow airport, meet aircraft at remote stands to help disabled passengers leave the aircraft using a medical lift.

But they were nowhere to be seen. Mr Gardner waited a further one hour and 35 minutes after the last passenger left.

The BBC journalist told The Independent: “Why should disabled passengers have so much worse service than everybody else?”

Mr Gardner posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Annoyed to find that @HeathrowAirport is slipping back into its old bad habits, leaving disabled passengers still waiting for a high-lift to turn up so we can get off the plane, long after all others have disembarked.

“Other airports can manage. C’mon Heathrow, get a grip!”

The correspondent was full of praise for the British Airways crew on board, who had just worked for 14 hours. He said: “The captain was brilliant, saying, ‘I would never leave the plane with another passenger on board – I'm the captain of the ship.’

“The crew were so helpful and sympathetic, and they could not have been nicer.”

Mr Gardner said that after help finally arrived, he was told by a Wilson James operations manager that two of the five medical lifts had gone out of service overnight.

In 2018, the correspondent was kept waiting at Heathrow for 100 minutes to disembark from an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa.

The-then chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, later met Mr Gardner to discuss improvements.

“He said, ‘I’ll give you an hour of my time to learn what we need to do better’,” Mr Gardner said.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: "We are extremely sorry for the delay Mr Gardner experienced. This was due to the team responding to a medical emergency, which reduced the number of vehicles available but we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.

“As a gesture of goodwill, we have offered to cover the cost of the additional waiting time for his car. We continue to work hard to ensure all passengers enjoy a smooth and seamless experience when travelling through Heathrow."

The Independent has asked Wilson James, the contractor, to comment.

Most aircraft arriving at Heathrow are connected directly to the terminal using airbridges, which allow wheeling.