Alaska Airlines
IN PHOTO: A ground crew member walks near Alaska Airlines planes parked at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in SeaTac, Washington October 30, 2013. Voters in the working-class Seattle suburb of SeaTac, which encompasses the region's main airport, will decide on November 5, 2013 whether to enact one of the country's highest minimum wages in a ballot measure supporters hope will serve as a model for similar efforts elsewhere. Paul McElroy, a spokesman for SeaTac-based Alaska Airlines, which lost a court battle to keep a minimum wage initiative off the ballot, said its passage might prompt the airline to reroute some flights as a cost-saving measure. Amid debate about income inequality in America, the ballot initiative in SeaTac, Washington, would mandate that 6,300 workers at Sea-Tac International Airport and nearby hotels, car rental agencies and parking lots receive a minimum hourly wage of $15, more than double the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. Picture taken October 30, 2013. Reuters/Jason Redmond

A woman who has cancer and her family were offloaded by Alaska Airlines on Monday because she does not have a note from her physician that she could fly. As a result, 51-year-old Elizabeth Sedway of Granite Bay, California, missed her chemotherapy session.

The family went on vacation to Hawaii and were removed from the plane in the flight from Lihue, Hawaii, back to San Jose, California. Besides her missed chemo treatments, Sedway – who is suffering from multiple myeloma – wrote in her Facebook page that her kids will also be absent from school and her husband missed important meetings, reports CBS.

Sedway was already seated in the handicap section when an airline employee asked her if she needed anything, and she replied she might need more time boarding because she feels weak sometimes. Upon hearing the word “weak,” the airline employee called a doctor allegedly connected with the air carrier.

In a video she posted on Facebook, Sedway was quoted as saying, “I’m being removed as if I’m a criminal or contagious because I have cancer … No note to fly. Does anybody wonder how I got to Hawaii?”

The family had already boarded a plane when an Alaska Airline representative told them she could not fly without a note from her doctor that she was cleared to fly, Sedway said. Her family had no choice except to stay an extra night in Hawaii in a hotel, although they were able to fly back to California the next day.

Alaska Airlines apologised to Sedway for the offloading and reimbursed the family for their extra hotel night, reports the New York Daily News. It defended its policy, citing that the trip took the plane over the Pacific Ocean and the possibility of having an emergency over a trip that long.

But it admitted that despite the employee’s good intention, “the situation could have been handled differently.”

To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au

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