flydubai
Press photographers and cameramen cover the arrival of the first of flyDubai's 50 Boeing 737-800 Next Generation aircraft in the Gulf Emirate on May 18, 2009. KARIM SAHIB/AFP/Getty Images

An Australian paraplegic athlete said Tuesday he was forced to urinate into a bottle on a flyDubai flight while he was flying to Finland to compete at the World Para Ice Hockey Championships last month.

Darren Belling, 52, said he was unable to use the toilet during the seven-hour flight as the airline said it didn't have a wheelchair aboard. Belling said he asked the crew for a wheelchair a few hours after boarding the plane.

"They said 'we don't carry on-board wheelchairs’ and told me just to hold on for the seven-hour flight," he said, BBC reported.

The other option they gave him was to use an empty water bottle to urinate into. The airline then wanted him to pay for a blanket to cover himself.

"She advised me they don't have an onboard chair. There's no access to the toilet. She said to hang on,” he told ABC News. "I was just in disbelief over the level of treatment. It just throws up in your face that you've got a disability and some people and businesses don't have an empathetic view of it and treat you differently.”

His nightmare continued even in his return journey to Australia, but this time with Emirates. He faced a similar situation again this time with Emirates. After landing in Brisbane, the airline told him that some of his luggage including his wheelchair had been left behind in Dubai.

"How can my wheelchair — when all these chairs were booked together — get left behind?" he asked. The attendant then called up the team in Dubai. “They told me there was no room for it in the hold so they didn't put it in," he said.

"I'm straight away like, 'Mate, it's not a bag. I can understand bags being left behind — it's a wheelchair. It's a necessity. I can't walk. I need the wheelchair. The bags I can do without'," he said.

He then ended up borrowing a loan wheelchair so he could move around his house. "In 35 years of flying around for competitions with basketball, wheelchair NRL, tennis, arm-wrestling and now ice hockey, I have never had my disability thrown in my face as much as I have on this trip," he said.

flyDubi issued a statement apologizing to Belling and said it aimed to treat all of its passengers "with care and respect." "We have spoken to Mr Belling this morning and we have taken his feedback very seriously. A full investigation is under way to understand how this happened," the statement said.

This is not the first time airlines have comes under the scanner for ill-treating passengers with disabilities. Last year, a paraplegic athlete dragged himself through the arrivals terminal at Luton Airport in England after his wheelchair was left behind on a flight.