Airline apologises to two visually impaired passengers

　　The Hong Kong Blind Union says it was unreasonable for the airline to ask two visually impaired passengers to leave the plane.

　　Hong Kong Express Airways on Sunday apologised to two passengers, who are visually impaired, after staff asked them to leave a flight to Tokyo in May.

　　The move came after the Hong Kong Blind Union said two of its members had complained that they had been unreasonably forced to leave the plane.

　　At a press conference, the union said the airline had cited safety reasons for asking them to leave. The Blind Union's president, Billy Wong, said a new approach was needed from the Civil Aviation Department.

　　“As a supervisory and coordinating agency and a government department, we hope the Civil Aviation Department can do more to help people with visual impairments or disabilities so they can use these services easily and equally in Hong Kong, which is an aviation hub”, he said.

　　In response, the budget carrier said it was sorry for the inconvenience and delay caused to the passengers and it promised to provide compensation.

　　It said its ground staff and crew members had different assessments of the two passengers and the two individuals had initially been unable to board their original flight as scheduled following. what it described as, a thorough assessment by management.

　　But it said it was later confirmed that both passengers could safely travel unaccompanied and staff immediately arranged for them to board another flight on the same day.

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