A Southwest Airlines flight last month left two blind travelers behind.

Passengers Camille Tate and Sherri Brun were supposed to fly from New Orleans to Orlando, according to WSVN-TV.

However, they said, the plane that took everyone else to Florida left without them.

“I was angry and frustrated,” Tate said.

Once it realized the mistake, Southwest made sure it flew the two women to Orlando on a flight, which happened to have no one else aboard.

Two blind Florida women say Southwest Airlines left them behind on a flight from New Orleans to Orlando after failing to assist them with boarding, prompting the airline to send the plane back to pick them up.
https://t.co/1QqOyBfaOU

— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) August 9, 2025

“You’re the only two people on this flight because they forgot about you,” Brun said she was told.

When other passengers knew what was happening as their plane was delayed, the women did not.

“Nobody at B6 told us anything. Nobody came to get us at B4,” Brun recalled. “The time passed.”

They were not told of changes that took place due to a delay on their initial flight and could not see the activity around them.

“That airplane took off, and our boarding pass had not been swiped,” Tate said.

Southwest needs to make some changes, the women said.

“The way they help their customers that require additional assistance needs to change,” Brun explained. “There needs to be follow through.”

“There needs to be some improvement in how they communicate with their passengers, especially those that have disabilities,” Tate said.

Southwest issued a statement of apology.

“We apologize for the inconvenience. Southwest is always looking for ways to improve our Customers’ travel experiences, and we’re active in the airline industry in sharing best practices about how to best accommodate Passengers with disabilities,” Southwest said in a statement, according to WOFL-TV.

“We issued the $100 vouchers as compensation for the delayed travel, but a refund is not available if a Customer actually completes the flight,” the airline said.

The airline said that it did not send a plane back for the two women, but that they left on what had been their original flight.

“It appears the confusion about a plane coming back to get them might be because many of the Customers on that flight were accommodated on another MCO-bound flight that left a little earlier from a nearby gate. These two Customers were not re-booked on that flight, so their assigned gate never changed. Our records show they flew to MCO on the airplane that had been parked at their original gate.”

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