Whether he was reporting from outside the White House or the European parliament, Mark Mardell spent decades commanding the public’s attention on major world events.
But the former BBC presenter, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s three years ago, was recently left on the verge of tears after he was prevented from flying with Turkish Airlines without a letter from his GP saying he was fit to travel.
After being denied from boarding the flight from Istanbul to London Gatwick, Mardell, 68, spent seven hours — alone — stranded in the Turkish airport, one of the largest in the world.
“I feel so humiliated. It’s this terrible feeling that you are so vulnerable. I nearly burst into tears about five times,” Mardell said.
During his pleas for help with airport staff, he said one female employee turned to him and said: “Look at you — your hands are shaking.”
One of the most well-known symptoms of Parkinson’s, the degenerative neurological condition that affects about 166,000 people in the UK, is a tremor, though Mardell does not have one and thinks he was simply shaking due to stress.
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The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), a British regulatory body, said Turkish Airline’s policy is, in its view, unlawful under UK law and has since raised the issue with senior figures in the airline. As Turkish Airlines is a non-UK or EU carrier, it is outside the CAA’s official remit.
Mardell, a father of three from Banstead, Surrey, enjoyed a 25-year career at the BBC before leaving in 2020. He is now one of six presenters of the popular podcast Movers and Shakers — alongside Rory Cellan-Jones, Gillian Lacey-Solymar, Paul Mayhew-Archer, Sir Nicholas Mostyn and Jeremy Paxman — which documents the experience of living with Parkinson’s. Despite the subject matter, it is surprisingly upbeat and often funny, as well as informative and reassuring, particularly for those living, or loving someone, with the disease.
The hosts of the Movers and Shakers podcast, from left to right, Sir Nicholas Mostyn, Rory Cellan-Jones, Paul Mayhew-Archer, Gillian Lacey-Solymar, Mark Mardell and Jeremy Paxman, with Parkinson’s UK chief executive, Caroline Rassell, centre
ALAMY
UK airlines cannot request medical proof that someone, including those with Parkinson’s, is fit to travel unless there is “reasonable doubt” the passenger can complete the flight safely without requiring assistance, according to the CAA.
On October 20, Mardell travelled to Istanbul with his son Jake, 32, for an “amazing” week-long road trip together. Mardell flew into Turkey with Wizz Air. Like other airlines he has travelled with since his diagnosis, it did not ask for a doctor’s letter.
The following Saturday, the pair headed back to Istanbul airport where Mardell was returning home to London — this time with Turkish Airlines — and Jake, who lives in Berlin, was boarding a separate flight for a work trip.
After checking in for their respective flights, Jake told staff at the check-in desk that his father has Parkinson’s and needed assisted boarding, something Mardell has only started using in the past year as his illness has progressed. Everybody with Parkinson’s experiences the disease differently, with symptoms ranging from depression to hallucinations, constipation to a loss of a sense of smell. Mardell’s main symptoms are a weak voice and slow movement.
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“It’s quite a hard thing to admit, even to yourself, that you are disabled,” Mardell said. “It is quite a thing for me to say: ‘I need assisted boarding, I am handicapped’ … You know it does lower you in the estimation of some people, makes you lesser in their eyes.”
Jake was told that his father would only be allowed to fly if he had a letter from his doctor saying it was safe for him to do so. “We thought they meant originally a letter from your doctor to prove you had Parkinson’s. No, it turns out you can’t fly without a letter from your doctor to say there is no harm in flying,” Mardell said.
“There was one woman who was really horrible … She said, ‘no he has got Parkinson’s, you can’t let him on board.’ She went off to be horrible to some other passenger in a wheelchair and shouted at them.
“She said, ‘look at you, your hands are shaking.’ My hands don’t shake. It’s not one of my symptoms. But maybe they were because I was nervous and upset. It was so mean. She said: ‘It’s for your own good’. So my bags were taken off the flight.”
Jake, meanwhile, had to go and board his own flight; a decision he feels guilty about, but his father insisted he go. Mardell was then left wandering around Istanbul airport on his own as he struggled to find where he needed to go to be reunited with his bags.
“You are feeling vulnerable anyway and you are staggering around … and I just couldn’t walk anymore. I just wanted to sit down,” he said. “The odd thing was that they say it’s for your own good and then they let you stagger around an airport.” People with Parkinson’s can find walking difficult, if not impossible, particularly when they are under stress, and they often “freeze”.
After hours of searching, another passenger offered to help him and he was guided to the right part of the airport, where he waited for several more hours until he was finally given back his bags.
His son booked him a hotel for the night and a return flight home the next day with Wizz Air. Like his flight out of the UK, the airline did not ask for any medical evidence that he was fit to fly. Mardell returned home on October 26.
Mardell at his home in Surrey
SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
Mardell then complained to Turkish Airlines about his experience and an employee wished him a “speedy recovery”. Parkinson’s is an incurable disease.
Turkish Airlines states on its website that passengers with Parkinson’s can be “admitted to the flight with a doctor’s report stating that ‘there is no harm in traveling by plane’.”
On Wednesday, Mardell said he received a phone call from Turkish Airlines offering him a full refund for the missed flight.
On Thursday, Caroline Rassell, the chief executive of the charity Parkinson’s UK wrote to Turkish Airlines boss, Bilal Eksi, and described the policy as “ill-informed”, adding: “This is totally unnecessary and based on a misunderstanding of this condition. People with Parkinson’s may experience altered speech or movement. However, they are perfectly capable of managing their condition and travelling independently.” The airline was approached for comment.
Mardell’s experience is another negative example of assisted boarding at airports. In 2022, the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner, who is paralysed and uses a wheelchair, was left sitting on a plane at Heathrow long after the rest of the passengers had disembarked. The incident was not isolated and Gardner regularly shares similar experiences on social media.
The Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson has also faced the same issues. Last year, she was forced to “crawl off” an LNER train arriving at London’s King’s Cross after waiting for help for 20 minutes.
A CAA spokesman said: “We strongly believe that everyone should have access to air travel and recognise how important it is for people to feel supported and included when they fly.
“As the UK regulator, we set clear standards and monitor how these are met within the UK system. Mr Mardell’s flight was operated by a non-UK/EU carrier, departing from an airport outside of the UK, which falls outside the remit of the UK Civil Aviation Authority.”
