Disabled student in SIA seat row says she's 'hurt' by comments questioning her claims of crew’s ‘discriminatory’ behaviour

SINGAPORE — Ms Isabella Beale, the 23-year-old student who claimed that she was discriminated by Singapore Airlines (SIA) staff members on her flight to and from Europe, said on Wednesday (March 15) that she felt hurt by public feedback slamming her in defence of SIA. She also dismissed the airlines' response as "insufficient".

Ms Beale, a congenital amputee without a left forearm, previously told Australian media outlet ABC News that SIA's cabin crew had made her feel “humiliated” in asking her to move from her seat in an emergency exit row to meet regulatory requirements.

SIA later apologised and said that it had reviewed its internal processes since the incident and had "taken steps to improve on communications with its customers for similar matters".

After the incident, people streamed in with comments on online platforms such as Facebook and Reddit. On TODAY's Facebook post, many have criticised Ms Beale's reaction, stating that the staff members were just carrying out their duty and enforcing regulatory requirements.

Some online users questioned if Ms Beale's claims about the SIA crew's behaviour were believable and said that they have never come across such discriminatory attitude shown by SIA staff members on their travels.

One wrote: "I doubt the crew will use the ‘get out’ words on her. They are trained to speak with tact and diplomacy regardless of circumstances with passengers."

A reader, Patrick Tan Siong Kuan, also wrote to TODAY on Wednesday to say that the SIA staff members should be "applauded for doing the right thing" for the safety of all the passengers and crew.

He said that he had seen flight crew asking passengers to switch out of the emergency seat row several times during his travels, but he has not witnessed an SIA crew member behaving rudely or humiliating any passengers, regardless of their physical condition.

Ms Beale — who is from Australia and studying law at the University of Melbourne — told TODAY: "I feel hurt by some of the responses online to my story. As a disabled woman, I often feel like my voice is ignored or ridiculed.

"I would like to reiterate that my complaint is not that I should have been allowed to stay in an emergency seat. Rather, my complaint is that I deserved to have been treated with respect when the issue arose.

"I should not have been publicly humiliated and degraded. My disability shouldn’t have been called ‘a problem’ by staff."

SIA'S RESPONSE 'INSUFFICIENT'

On the steps that SIA said it had taken after the incident, Ms Beale said that these were "insufficient".

"Without evidence that any internal processes have been implemented, it is hard to believe that any meaningful change has been made," she added

Ms Beale also claimed that several people have reached out to her and said that they had also experienced "degrading treatment" from the airline.

"This makes it all the more important that we see evidence of retraining and new processes to combat ableism from SIA," she said.

Ms Beale had shared the incident on her Instagram account, which has more than 1,000 followers. In her post, she said that the discrimination and vilification of people with disabilities is "humiliating and unjust", adding that they deserve to be respected as humans.

"No airline policy gave @singaporeair the right to treat me as though I was a problem rather than a person," she added.

TODAY has reached out to SIA for more comments.