Wheelchair basketball team says Southwest Airlines damaged chairs before tournament

PHOENIX - Ability 360’s wheelchair basketball team says Southwest Airlines disassembled all their chairs and many of them were damaged during their trip this week to Richmond, Va. for the National Wheelchair Basketball Championships. The team, based in Phoenix, is bringing attention to the continuous issues they face when traveling.

Justin Walker says he and his teammates were left stranded by the airlines.

"Our chair is our legs," he said.

The team has nearly 50 people, most with two wheelchairs each. That's four wheels per player.

"If you have to take a wheel off to get it through the door, put the wheel back on before it goes under the plane. If you take all those wheels off, what do you think is going to happen?" said Walker.

It sounds so simple, but not only did Southwest take every wheel off, Walker says the airline threatened to call the police after many parents of the players tried to get back on the plane to help fix the situation.

"You’ve got like a hundred wheels. You got 50 chairs. You don't know whose go to what. You don't know which wheels match and the only person that knows is on the plane," he said.

The CEO and president of Ability 360, Christopher Rodriguez, says this is not the first time this has happened and is calling on all airlines to make changes.

"This happens so incredibly often that these apologies just become complacent. I mean, they really held no gaps, no water, because if they were sincere about these statements, then we wouldn't see these incidents so prevalent across the country," he said.

"Yeah, they make the same generic statement, you know, and they say like, oh, we've been in contact with the proper whoever, whatever. They haven't contacted us."

FOX 10 reached out to Southwest for comment on the mishap and they responded saying the following:

"We have reviewed the situation and addressed it with the appropriate parties so we are able to provide a better experience for our customers the next time they fly with Southwest."