Dr Jurai Darongkamas has travelled all over the world with her mobility scooter and says she never had a problem until she booked a flight with Qantas earlier this year.
The 60-year-old clinical psychologist, who lives in the UK city of Birmingham, flew to Sydney on Thai Airways without issue but was not allowed to board her connecting Qantas flight to her holiday destination in New Zealand.
At the heart of Darongkamas’s dispute with Qantas is whether her scooter is a mobility aid, as she argues, or a personal electronic device, as the airline insisted during a six-month long complaints process.
Qantas says it aims to be the “airline of choice for customers with specific needs”, but Darongkamas says Qantas is the only carrier that hasn’t let her fly with her Topmate ES33 scooter and its 281Wh lithium battery.
She said the experience on the day “hammered home the fact that I am no longer as able as I was … and people can do…
