JetBlue abandons elderly woman scheduled to board flight to RSW

FORT MYERS, Fla. Denise Chase is on pins and needles waiting to see her mother after a plane landed at Southwest Florida International Airport Tuesday — without her.

“I have a lot of angst about this that she’s not going to make it home, even tomorrow,” she said. “She’s got no medications, takes them three times a day, she’s got no luggage.”

Carmen Courchesne, Chase’s elderly disabled mother, is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and was visiting her grandchildren in Boston.

She was navigating Boston’s Logan International Airport through the wheelchair assistance program, but was abandoned during a gate change, Chase said.

“They said, ‘Oh don’t worry. When you have wheelchair assistance, they stay with them and get them to the gate at the right time,’ and that never happened,” Chase said. “They must’ve just left her there at the gate.”

JetBlue set Courchesne up in a hotel for the night, Chase said, but that’s not the solution she was hoping for.

“This airline…they messed up but they just didn’t make it right,” she said. “They didn’t get her home today.”

The airline booked  Courchesne for a flight that has three connections, causing Chase even more stress.

“Now we have three more opportunities for them to do the same thing — screw it up,” Chase said.

JetBlue released this statement, which read in part:

“We regret Ms. Courchesne’s experience and are conducting a comprehensive review of the events with our business partners.”