“Wicked” star Marissa Bode posted a video on TikTok on Thursday claiming she was recently barred from a Southern Airways flight because of her wheelchair.
“I was denied boarding a flight because I’m disabled,” Bode said. “I wish that were clickbait. I wish that were false, but that is what happened.”
Bode explained that she was having trouble locating her virtual ticket before boarding her flight to Pennsylvania. When she asked the crew for assistance, they informed her she was not allowed on the plane because of her wheelchair.
“So I got to the gate, and I was like, ‘Hey, could you help me locate my boarding pass?’” Bode recalled. “And the two people at the gate look at me, and they are like, ‘Can you stand?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And they said, ‘I’m sorry, but because of that, we’re going to have to deny you boarding.’ They proceeded to tell me all the planes within this airline have stairs to get on the plane. Wild. Never heard of that before.”
She added, “I was like, disabled people are not an afterthought. Why, knowing that disabled people exist, which y’all clearly often forget, do you choose not to update your planes? And I was like, ‘This is blatant segregation.’”
Southern Airlines’ contract of carriage states that “customers must be able to ascend and descend several steps to board the aircraft.” The contract also states that because the Southern Airlines’ planes hold “28 or fewer passengers,” it is exempt from providing mechanical lifts, a requirement set by the Air Carrier Access Act.
However, despite the policy, Bode said that her manager “spoke to them beforehand and they fully assured that I would be set for my flight.”
Bode made her breakout playing Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose, in 2024’s “Wicked” and last year’s sequel “Wicked: For Good.” Variety exclusively revealed in January that Bode will star in the upcoming psychological thriller “Snare,” directed by Sonja O’Hara and Adam Hoelzel.
In “Snare,” Bode will play Greta Mills, a mushroom researcher who falls prey to a violent love triangle. Greg Tarzan Davis of “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” and “Top Gun: Maverick” will also star.
