Air Canada has apologised after a disabled passenger was forced to “drag himself” off its plane when a wheelchair was not provided.

Canadian Rodney Hodgins, who has spastic cerebral palsy and uses a motorised wheelchair, and his wife flew from Vancouver to Las Vegas in the United States in late August to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

Upon landing, a flight attendant said an aisle wheelchair – a narrow version of a normal wheelchair – was not available and that he would need to get off the plane on his own.

The couple initially thought it was a joke.

“How am I supposed to get to the front of my plane when I can’t walk? If I didn’t need a wheelchair, I wouldn’t have been sitting there,” Mr Hodgins, 49, told Canadian public broadcaster CBC.

However, the Hodgins soon realised that the flight attendant was serious.

Faced with no choice, he used his arms to drag himself past 12 rows of seats, with his wife Deanna crawling behind to help him.

Once they reached the front of the plane, Mr Hodgins, a hardware salesman, was able to use his motorised wheelchair.

The couple said the pilot, co-pilot, two flight attendants and eight cleaning employees watched and did not offer any help.

Mrs Hodgins called the experience “dehumanising”.

“As he dragged his body, I could see bits of his dignity and along with strength slowly fall,” she wrote on Facebook on Oct 24.

“It took us struggling, in front of a dozen people as some looked away and others looked on with shame, to get him off that plane.”

While they continued with their trip, she said her husband was in pain for several days as he had hurt his legs, while she had hurt her back.

“Emotionally, a lot more was hurt. My husband’s human rights were trampled on,” she added.

She said she and her husband are experienced travellers. They took eight months to plan their anniversary trip, making sure they took care of all requirements for disabled travelling on their end but “Air Canada failed us in every sense”.

The airline acknowledged that the Hodgins had received inadequate support.

“We use the services of a third-party wheelchair assistance specialist in Las Vegas. Following our investigation into how this serious service lapse occurred, we will be evaluating other mobility assistance service partners in Las Vegas.”

Mr Hodgins said Air Canada offered a C$2,000 (S$1,980) voucher for a future flight.

“I thought – it’s not about that. I want you to change your policy so that you always have somebody there all the time when a person with a disability is coming off that plane. I just really don’t want this to happen to another person,” he added.

The Canadian Transportation Agency has launched an investigation.

It is not the first time an incident like this has happened to airline passengers.

In 2017, a wheelchair-bound man had to crawl up a set of stairs to board his flight after an employee of a Japanese budget carrier told him that company safety rules banned anyone from carrying him up.

In 2020, Spanish airline Albastar was forced to apologise after a disabled woman had to crawl up the aisle of one of its planes to use a toilet and a flight attendant said “disabled people should wear nappies on board”.

In October 2022, an Australian passenger who requires wheelchair service ended up crawling down the aisle of a plane after she was allegedly told by Jetstar flight crew to pay for an aisle wheelchair to disembark.

On Oct 20, Air Canada lost the wheelchair of Canada’s Chief Accessibility Officer Stephanie Cadieux, who described the experience as “immensely frustrating and dehumanising”. She has reportedly been in touch with the Hodgins to offer her advice.