A complaint posted to the easyJet Facebook page about an elderly woman left alone for hours has sparked mass outrage.
The great-grandmother, thought to be travelling to Northern Ireland to visit family, was allegedly "dumped" by airline staff.
The photo shared alongside the complaint shows the woman sitting alone at the Edinburgh airport gate.
Trish Mullen, who raised her concerns with easyJet on Facebook, wrote: “Absolute shame on you EasyJet. A vulnerable woman confined to a wheelchair 'dumped' by your staff at Gate 1A in Edinburgh at 6.45pm tonight for a flight departing at 9.55pm! Not a soul anywhere in this area until I arrived at the gate at 9pm.
“I asked her if she was Ok when she said to me ‘thank goodness someone else is here’ and she was visibly upset. When staff arrived I asked why this had happened and the young man was extremely rude.”
She added: “I wheeled her to the new gate and sat her right next to check in. I was further disappointed when staff there too blatantly ignored her holding up her passport. I asked if she could board and they said no because someone had to come for her.
“She was jostled as the crowds surrounded her on boarding. Out of nowhere then came 5 other wheelchair bound passengers, all with families and each had a member of staff pushing them. I again asked what was happening here as these other passengers hadn't been left for hours and I was completely blanked by the 2 check in staff.”
The post has been shared over 5,000 times, with over 1,000 comments.
Courtney Smyth, thought to be the elderly woman’s great granddaughter responded to the complaint, writing: “This is my Great Granny, after reading this I am absolutely appalled at how she was treated on her way to stay with us for her holidays.
“Disgusting behaviour on easyJet's behalf. Thank you Trish Mullen for helping my granny out, it means a lot”.
EasyJet have responded to the complaint and are “very concerned” but insisted that all assistance is provided by Omniserv, who are contracted by Edinburgh Airport.
They said: “easyJet is very concerned to see this picture and is urgently taking this up with Edinburgh Airport and their special assistance provider Omniserve.
"This is clearly not the customer service and care we expect to be provided to our passengers. As such we have immediately launched an investigation with Omniserv to establish what happened and ensure it cannot happen again.”
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: "This is unacceptable; the security and wellbeing of all of our passengers is our number one priority and we are assisting easyJet and Omniserv in their investigation to get to the bottom of this to make sure it doesn't happen again."
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