Stem-cell trachea transplant was endangered by EasyJet: "your cell culture is a security risk"
Remember the woman who got a new trachea grown from her own stem cells? Well, she almost didn't -- because the discount airline EasyJet decided that flying with stem cells presented a "security risk" and wouldn't let the scientists carrying them onto the plane.
"On arrival they said it couldn't go on because it would be a security risk - but I had been talking to people on a regular basis," he said.Easyjet 'threatened to derail stem cell transplant' (Thanks, Heal Emru!)"I was so furious, trying to explain months of work.
"The clock was ticking. We'd taken the cells out of their culture media an hour before.
"We thought about driving to Barcelona, but that would have taken too long..."
The professor paid the 14,000 pounds it cost to charter a private jet out of his own pocket, though the cost was later reimbursed by Bristol University.
A spokesman for easyJet said: "We do not have any record of the passenger's request to carry medical materials on board the flight.
"However as a gesture of goodwill easyJet has refunded the passenger for the cost of his flight."
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twelve monkeys!!!! helllooooooo!!!!!!
What a stunningly kind gesture!
strange, a visit to easyJet's website seems to tell you everything except how to make a complaint or ask a non-standard question.
Most airlines probably would have appologized at most.
And the airlines wonder why people hate them.
His mistake, of course, was to think that communicating with airlines is of any use.
In my experience you can write, email and telephone all you like in advance of a flight to arrange the carriage of something unusual. The moment you arrive at the airport, even if you have copies of correspondence from the airline with you, their staff will almost always deny any knowledge of what has been arranged.
@Hans Davies: ???
As much as I love a Terry Gilliam movie, I think you seriously miss the point. I am sincerely hoping that is some sort of sarcasm in your comment that I am not getting.
If you are serious, then I think your reaction is similar to EasyJet's and what could have caused severe consequences for a patient due to such a knee-jerk reaction.
*prays I am wrong about my interpretation of your comment*
This delivery is about the same as carrying a kidney or heart to someone who is waiting for an organ transplant. International deliveries of stem cells occur throughout the year, and when someone needs a bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplant it is hand-carried anywhere in the world it needs to be.
How can this trigger a 12 Monkeys scenario?
"Your security is a culture risk"
So EasyJet refunded the £14,000 cost of the jet they forced him to take, right? As in, to make up for their mistake. Because if they just refunded him the cost of his EasyJet ticket then they've clearly missed the point of an appology.
I hope Bristol University sue and win for the cost of the jet. EasyJet's response is like FedEx intentionally breaking your ming vase and then refunding the shipping cost.
I'm impressed they refunded his tickets. American Airlines would've given him a coupon for $50.
I used to cross into the USA from Canada with a trunk full of formalin and biological samples, including boxes and boxes of containers full of fish heads and parasites (my excuse is that I'm a parasitologist). Never got a single comment. Not one.
The only time I ever got turned back was when I forgot I had a small box of fireworks in the back seat- those count as explosives, I was told. But a trunk full of pathogens (even dead ones)? THAT got waved right through.
There are two disconnected factors here.
Security and Common Sense. In a sane world the two concepts would be interactive and reinforce each other. When they intersect with air travel both factors seem to be ignored. With the result that neither seems anywhere in the picture. A certain degree of autonomy is essential for mitigating risks unsuspected before their discovery. But applying that autonomy demands common sense as a sanity check. Failing to do so results in sanity failures like this Stem Cell case.
@Tamu
I assume the team of scientists that were supposed to give you a sense of irony were also stopped by airport security?
They refunded him the cost of his $50 EasyJet flight, or they refunded him the cost of his £14,000 pound charter?
Either way they look bad. I'm pretty sure that if I have to take a charter when-not-if EasyJet screws up the very next flight I'm dumb enough to book with them (fool me six times, shame on you...) they won't be refunding my money.
Get it in writing. ALWAYS get it in writing. With the highest-level signatures you can get.
"A verbal contract is worth the paper it's printed on."
pretty sure it was the flight, not the charter they refunded. which is much more than any north american airline would have done.
And I agree with the post that security and common sense should go together. but I disagree that neither are present only when it comes to air travel. Have you noticed how the British government is behaving in the name of "security" lately? Common sense left that building a while back, as did any actual enhancement of security.
This is EasyJet, the ticket probably didn't even cost $50..
@Tamu: I believe his comment was to show that there can be a security risk when biohazardous materials are transported, from the viewpont of the security staff. The *potential* for risk is there... though, as Baldhead mentions, this should be tempered with common sense.
@tamu: definitely sarcasm. every time i read one of these types of stories, my stomach drops.
@ Oren Beck
"There are two disconnected factors here. Security and Common Sense."
You just summed up everything wrong with the world post 9-11.
what you need for cases like this is an unbroken, undeniable chain of accountability. The people shipping should have first made a phone call and then followed it up with emails, faxes, registered public mail and various couriers. The local media should have been alerted as well as all levels of government. Representatives should have been dispatched to physically meet and stay with all airport personnel at every level of contact in the chain of shipping events. These should have been triple shifted with a changing of the guard timed for overlap so every airline staff member would have been personally introduced at each shift change and apprised of the facts face to face. This should all have been put in place for at least a week prior accompanied by a media blitz. Legal letters confirming every step of this and also warning of the litigation already pre-prepared should have been sent to all the airline executives as well.
All these measures would have helped and could only have been circumvented by say one slack jawed security screener operating without reason or accountability.
This doesn't surprise me, easyjet is by far the worst airline I've ever flown with. The prices aren't worth the suffering time costs.
I had 3 flights with easyjet on a recent trip to europe.
Each flight didn't leave before it was scheduled to arrive.
One caused me to have a 9 hour delay in Madrid Barajas airport. There was a designated restaurant with a free meal to make up for the wait (which, of course, the agents didn't tell us about. I found out from airport security). When I tried to calmly ask where the restaurant was located, the agent stood up to yell at me to go away, and eventually sat down and said, in spanish, "I can't handle this."
The fact that they also upsold me insurance that wasn't even valid didn't improve things either.
Anonymous @ 22
You clearly haven't tried RyanAir..
What would they expect from a budget airline... mature well paid expertly trained staff who could make snap decisions or underpaid kids barely out of school?
This wasn't poor communication or bungled security theatre - this was cynical corporate sabotage. Expect Stelios to announce his easyStem venture shortly.