Shane Hyhorec, an Adelaide-based disability advocate with C5 incomplete quadriplegia, was removed from a Virgin Australia plane before its departure due to a dispute over the stowage of his wheelchair’s motor. The airline says it’s reviewing the incident.
What happened?
Hyhorec regularly travels by air for work with his service dog and a wheelchair with a portable electric motor. However, when Hyhorec boarded a Virgin Australia flight from Sydney to Adelaide on Monday, Aug. 17, he had no space to store his SmartDrive (a wheelchair power-assist device) under the seats in his row after being instructed to do so by cabin crew, saying “I’m not going to have a SmartDrive roll around and hit my dog.”
A TikTok video Hyhorec posted on Monday night showed parts of the dispute with cabin crew over the stowage issue, which ended with him being removed from the flight. In the video, Hyhorec said he “flew four flights in the last week” with the wheelchair and motor with no issues, and the crew allowed him to store the motor in the overhead locker. A cabin crew member speaking to him responded, “they’ve done the wrong thing then.”
Hyhorec pans his camera to show he can’t store his bag under the seat to his right due to a “bulkhead” that’s “not designed that [he] can put a bag under there”, and his service dog is resting on the floor to his left, causing him to be unable to safely store the motor under the seat in front of him.
Towards the end of the video, Hyhorec adds a voiceover of him saying:
“I’ve been offloaded from the plane in front of everybody watching. I feel so upset, so angry that an airline would treat people this way. To say that I’m angry is an absolute understatement. I just think it’s absolutely shocking, in the year 2026, that we’re having airlines like Virgin treating people like this.”
Virgin Australia says it will review the incident
Virgin Australia said it “remains committed to providing an accessible and inclusive travel experience for all our guests.”
A spokesperson said:
“While the safety of our guests and crew is always our highest priority, we are reviewing the circumstances of yesterday’s experience to understand whether there are opportunities to better identify specific seating or stowage requirements in advance and how our teams can support guests in similar circumstances.”
The airline hasn’t yet clarified the correct stowage of items like portable wheelchair motors, and whether they were allowed in overhead lockers.
What are your thoughts on the dispute between Hyhorec and Virgin Australia? Let us know in the comments.
