'I was laughed at in Manchester Airport and couldn't reach anything in the lounge... it made me feel so unwelcome'

A university lecturer with dwarfism who flew from Manchester Airport says she was left feeling 'upset' and 'unwelcome' after being 'laughed at' and lounge facilities being 'inaccessible' for her.

Dr Erin Pritchard, 38, jetted out from Terminal 2 on Tuesday, March 26, to spend a week with her best friend who lives in Thailand. However, she says the experience was marred by the 'ignorant' attitude of one family and her inability to be able to serve herself food and drink in a lounge where she had hoped to get some peace and quiet before her flight.

Dr Pritchard was on her way to the Escape Lounge and was passing the restaurants in the terminal building when she says she was singled out by a fellow female traveller who she said appeared as she was in her late 40s or early 50s, and who was standing outside an eatery.

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"She clocked me, then turned her head and was shouting to someone who I'm pretty sure was her son saying 'come here, come here quickly before you miss it'" Dr Pritchard told the Manchester Evening News.

"At first, I thought 'Has she seen something past me and I'm being paranoid?' So I quickly went to walk down the corridor to get to the Escape Lounge and as I was doing that I heard echoes in the corridor of laughter from this woman and her son. I looked around and I saw her looking down the corridor, laughing at me. Then when I clocked her, she sprung back into the main hub.

Dr Pritchard, who is originally from Wales but lives in Liverpool where she is a Senior Lecturer in Disability Studies at the city's Hope University, said it left her feeling 'frustrated' and 'upset.'

"We're people with the same emotions as