Left To Sit In The Wheelchair For Several Hours At Newark

And 85-year-old passenger on  Southwest Airlines missed a recent flight when the wheelchair attendant who was supposed to get her through security and on to the gate parked the woman's wheelchair and apparently forgot about her for several hours.

The passenger, Alice Vaticano of Denver, CO, said she was left "sitting all day in a wheelchair" at Newark airport, according to CBS Denver.

Vaticano had traveled to Newark to visit her daughter, and was returning to Colorado. The daughter got her mother into the wheelchair and talked to the skycap, but did not get clearance to pass through security with her. Somewhere between the ticket counter and TSA, Vaticano was parked and forgotten.

When she did not get off the plane in Denver, her other daughter, Donna Vaticano went into "panic mode," according to the report.

Southwest said that it eventually realized its mistake and got Alice Vaticano onto a flight to Denver connecting through Chicago. A Southwest spokesperson said that there was a "processing error" at check-in, and the gate agents were not alerted to Vaticano's need for a wheelchair. In a statement, the airline said "We’ve researched the details of this Denver customer’s travel and can verify that she checked in for her flight at Newark Liberty International Airport two hours prior to her scheduled departure, but a processing error in that check-in process did not alert our employees at the gate to her special need (wheelchair) in boarding the aircraft."

Southwest said the skycaps are not airline employees. They are airport workers who are assigned to assist airlines with their special needs passengers.

Vaticano was given two $100 vouchers for future travel for her inconvenience.

FMI: www.panynj.gov/airports/ne