Disabled passenger forced to crawl onto plane

A man is claiming a budget airline in Japan gave him no choice but to drag himself up 17 steps to board his flight.

BBC reports staff from the airline, Vanilla Air, told Hideto Kijima he had to get up the gangway without assistance for safety reasons.

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Kijima was paralyzed from the waist down in a rugby injury and earlier in his trip, his friends had been allowed to help him onboard.

Vanilla Air has since apologized.

An aircraft boarding chair has since been added to the airport where the incident occurred and an electric stair climber is set to be introduced.