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Actor Marissa Bode, known for her role as Nessarose in the recent Wicked film duology, says Southern Airways has taken steps to address an incident in which she was prevented from boarding a flight due to her disability.
In a Sunday TikTok update, Bode told followers she wanted to get ahead of further press coverage on the matter. The airline’s director of mobility had reached out personally, and by Bode’s account, the response was sincere. The director “was mortified” about what happened and was also “very apologetic” and “very understanding,” she said, adding that an internal review is now underway — particularly given that her manager had pre-confirmed accommodations with the airline before the trip was ever booked.
Bode was clear about what she wants out of the situation: “I told [the director] on the phone, I don’t want money out of this. I truly, truly just want it to be better for disabled fliers in the future. Aside from just me. … They’re doing the right thing in terms of figuring out how to rectify it.”
The incident, which Bode first described in a Thursday TikTok, occurred while she was traveling to a speaking engagement in a small Pennsylvania town. When she couldn’t find her virtual boarding pass for a connecting flight, she approached gate agents for help — at which point the situation escalated.
“I was denied boarding a flight because I’m disabled,” she said. “I wish that were clickbait. I wish that were false, but that is what happened.”
Upon seeing Bode in a wheelchair, the gate agents asked whether she could stand. When she said no, they told her the flight’s small aircraft required passengers to climb stairs to board, and that they would therefore have to turn her away. Staff even noted that elderly passengers sometimes found the stairs difficult — a detail Bode found far from reassuring.
Legally, Southern Airways points to a clause in its contract of carriage stating that passengers must be able to climb several steps to board, and that the airline is not obligated to provide mechanical lift devices under the Air Carrier Access Act, given that its planes seat 28 or fewer passengers — a threshold that triggers certain exemptions.
Bode rejected that framing outright, calling it “blatant segregation.” “Why are we, once again, waiting around for a disabled person to be present to even think about changing things or accommodating things,” she said. “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?”
While Bode praised Southern Airways for how it has handled things since the incident, she made clear her frustration extends well beyond one airline or one flight. In her update, she challenged the broader industry to stop treating accessibility as a reactive measure and start building it in proactively — including by bringing disabled people into the process from the start.
“I just want things better for disabled people in the future,” she said. “At the very least, it looks like Southern, so far, is dedicated to doing so. … I really do appreciate how receptive they’ve been.”
Her larger ask to the industry: not just reaching out to disabled people to discuss “how to rectify the situation” after something goes wrong, but also “hiring them … to figure out how we can make things accessible” before it does.
One Response
She should sue the company and get a refund from the company of her flight and get a couple millions and put some donations towards to disabled organizations. I am disabled and I some problems in airports and the last time I had an accident in the airport bathroom and I was stuck in the toilet seat with my walker and I was stuck between the toilet seat and the wall. I had one person who was in the bathroom and he tried to help me with the issue. My partner was also tried to get me up to get up and it didn’t work. We had miss our flight to get home. This is why I have been a big fighter for disability community. A lot of the planes are old and they need to create new modern aircraft that has more room to get in the seats,bathrooms more room and better seats. This is part of my goal with our community members