TikTok efficiently bought in formation to get a fan to Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour.
Jon Hetherington was purported to fly to Seattle final week for a Beyoncé live performance, however he could not full the flight as a result of his wheelchair was too tall, which meant he would miss the present.
Jon Hetherington, 34, from Oregon, initially deliberate to attend the Seattle present of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, however could not fly as a result of his wheelchair exceeded the aircraft’s cargo dimensions. He posted in regards to the saga on TikTok and a consultant for Beyoncé organized for him to attend her Dallas present.
Jon Hetherington
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Jon Hetherington
Jon Hetherington, 34, from Oregon, initially deliberate to attend the Seattle present of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, however could not fly as a result of his wheelchair exceeded the aircraft’s cargo dimensions. He posted in regards to the saga on TikTok and a consultant for Beyoncé organized for him to attend her Dallas present.
Jon Hetherington
He posted the dilemma on TikTok, and lots of of the social platform’s customers started tagging Beyoncé and Parkwood Leisure, her manufacturing and leisure firm. A consultant for the singer reached out to him and shortly he was on his solution to see her carry out in Texas.
The 34-year-old Oregon resident was pictured with Beyoncé at Thursday’s Dallas present.
“To the queen herself @beyonce, I’ll treasure these phrases you mentioned and the hugs you gave,” he wrote on Instagram. “I meant each phrase I mentioned. No, for anybody and everybody studying this, I cannot ever share with you what was mentioned to me, do not even attempt it. That second is between the 2 of us.”
Hetherington has cerebral palsy, and mentioned that whereas he was at Oregon’s Eugene Airport final Thursday every little thing proceeded as regular at first. An Alaska Airways worker examined his ID and tagged his wheelchair, and even remembered him as a result of had flown flew to Seattle two weeks earlier to see singer Janelle Monáe kick off their tour, he advised NPR.
The worker remembered Hetherington’s chair wanted some additional finagling, which Hetherington mentioned delayed the sooner flight about 20 minutes, however he was not alerted of some other points.
This time round, Hetherington mentioned an airline worker advised him his chair was 4 inches too tall, then moved him out of his chair and tried to break down it, to no avail, whereas one other worker appeared on-line for details about the chair. He was lastly given a criticism decision kind and advised solely an Airbus aircraft would be capable to match his wheelchair.
Pissed off on the airport, he turned to TikTok
However they didn’t discover any out there Airbus flights that may get him there in time for the present. So he went to TikTok.
“Nicely, guess I am not going to see Seattle, and I am not seeing Beyoncé,” he mentioned within the video. “So after 25 years of ready, I am not seeing Beyoncé tonight, so ableism strikes once more.”
“I went exterior and I used to be simply pissed. I used to be demoralized at that time,” Hetherington advised NPR. “I’ve about 22,000 followers on TikTok and I normally get a few couple hundred views on my movies, so I believed, ‘OK, a pair hundred folks will see it.’ I by no means in a billion lifetimes would have thought that this complete factor would have taken off prefer it did.”
The video was watched greater than 90,000 occasions. Hetherington and Alaska Airways mentioned his airline ticket has been refunded.
“We really feel horrible about our visitor’s journey expertise with us. We’re all the time aiming to do higher as we encounter conditions equivalent to this one,” Alaska Airways mentioned in an announcement. “Our Boeing [aircraft] have dimension limitations in the case of loading battery-powered mobility aids, like a wheelchair, into the cargo maintain.”
In line with Alaska Airways, its Boeing planes can match wheelchairs which might be a most of 34 inches excessive, whereas Airbus plane can match ones as much as 46 inches.
Though not required, the airways mentioned it recommends folks with mobility aids put in a particular service request to find out forward of their flight if their assist could be accommodated.
Why he is such a giant Beyoncé fan
Hetherington, who’s pansexual, mentioned he has been a Beyoncé fan since he was 9 years outdated.
He mentioned he admires that she is paying homage to the LGBTQ+ group together with her Renaissance album, amid handed and potential U.S. laws that may prohibit youth from receiving gender-affirming care, bar books with LGBTQ+ subject material from public libraries and ban transgender college students from utilizing loos matching the gender they determine with.
“She might be, I’d say, essentially the most well-known Black lady on this planet, and for her to make use of that stature, that energy and authority to carry up — particularly now — the queer group … isn’t any small factor,” Hetherington mentioned.
However regardless of the glad ending, he mentioned the incident is indicative of a much bigger difficulty.
After the Monáe live performance, he could not discover a taxi that was wheelchair-friendly, leaving him stranded within the streets of Seattle from midnight to 9 a.m. The battery of his wheelchair died at 8 a.m., he mentioned.
“This isn’t a few live performance,” he mentioned. “This isn’t about one artist. This isn’t about one airline. That is about systemic problems with ableism which might be taking place on daily basis. Disabled individuals are coping with this in society, on the whole, and our society has been constructed to exclude disabled folks. That is what’s essential.”
