Home > Opinion > Who needs airport assistance?
Tom Shakespeare
Tom is a Research Fellow at Newcastle University. His non-fiction books include Genetics Politics: from Eugenics to Genome and The Sexual Politics of Disability.
Who needs airport assistance?
5th June 2009
My poor wheelchair is looking a bit battered. Perhaps that's not so surprising, as since I became paralysed last August, it's been manhandled onto at least twenty-seven different airplanes across four continents. The push rims are missing paint, my brake handles have been bent, the cap has come off the front caster and so on. Once, I turned up at Newcastle airport only to find that my Quickie had gone astray somewhere between Sydney and home, and I was relegated to a nasty airport number which I couldn’t even push myself around in. Thankfully, the panic only lasted until the evening. I've never been happier than when I opened the front door to find the courier standing there with my trusted purple chair.
I know that some folks have had far worse experiences, but all in all I am quite impressed with airport special assistance. They’ve so far got me to all my flights on time, lifted me on and off without a murmur, and often turned out to be cheerful and friendly souls into the bargain (the all-time star being the Lebanese guy at Geneva who effusively greeted every workmate we passed while simultaneously entertaining me with stories of his global adventures).
Mind you, there are some exceptions. For instance, the spotty boys who turned up to escort me out of Chicago last week didn't quite know what they were doing, and were almost certainly on work experience. I've waited ages to get off flights on occasions when the special assistance team didn’t turn up on time. And there have been some grumpy, clumsy, not to mention patronising staff along the way. Yet overall, I do think it's amazing that disabled people can travel almost anywhere in the world, and that as long as they give prior warning (and avoid Ryanair, who in recent years have had a succession of controversial incidents involving disabled passengers), they can expect to be enabled to get on and off their plane without a fuss and without paying extra for the privilege. I don’t even mind being first on, last off - at least it gives you time to flirt with the cabin crew.
Which is why I felt outraged earlier this week when I was waiting for my flight at Chicago's O’Hare International airport and another passenger commandeered those aforementioned spotty boys to assist his mother with her luggage, when they should have been helping me board. This opportunistic individual had not let the fact that his mother had no obvious disability prevent him from claiming the wheelchair assistance that he so plainly felt was her due.
The main obstacle the pair of them seemed to be labouring under was having way too much cabin baggage. As well as several suitcases, they had a rolled-up carpet and several bin liners full of tat. Having monopolised the special assistance, they then filled all the overhead lockers in their vicinity with their possessions. During the flight, mother stood and stretched and wandered around the cabin with no sign of a limp or any other mobility impairment, yet when we touched down at London's Heathrow airport she was magically rendered incapacitated and in need of urgent help.
The main obstacle the pair of them seemed to be labouring under was having way too much cabin baggage. As well as several suitcases, they had a rolled-up carpet and several bin liners full of tat. Having monopolised the special assistance, they then filled all the overhead lockers in their vicinity with their possessions. During the flight, mother stood and stretched and wandered around the cabin with no sign of a limp or any other mobility impairment, yet when we touched down at London's Heathrow airport she was magically rendered incapacitated and in need of urgent help.
In the assistance truck, my partner asked innocently if he and his mother always used disability services. Always, assured our friend without blushing, since his mother was liable to get a 'sore knee'. Given that they seemed to be operating a cowboy intercontinental removal operation, I'm not entirely surprised.
Well, I’m sorry, but before I was a wheelchair user, I was pretty rubbish at walking long distances, but I never booked special assistance on my own behalf. I figured that there were other people who had a greater need for it. This week at Heathrow, speaking to the nice guy who pushed me all the way to the train, he confirmed that what we had witnessed was far from unusual. He told me that almost every week he is allocated one or two people to support who, in his view, are not actually disabled. For example, a passenger might let him push them across the airport, only to leap up and skip happily into a cab once they reach the taxi rank.
Well, I’m sorry, but before I was a wheelchair user, I was pretty rubbish at walking long distances, but I never booked special assistance on my own behalf. I figured that there were other people who had a greater need for it. This week at Heathrow, speaking to the nice guy who pushed me all the way to the train, he confirmed that what we had witnessed was far from unusual. He told me that almost every week he is allocated one or two people to support who, in his view, are not actually disabled. For example, a passenger might let him push them across the airport, only to leap up and skip happily into a cab once they reach the taxi rank.
Of course, neither he nor I have medical qualifications, and plenty of people have hidden impairments and thus have less than obvious reasons to find walking difficult or even dangerous. But I think, just as with blue badge abuse, there are undoubtedly a small minority of people who book special assistance without requiring it, presumably because they are too lazy to be bothered walking from check-in to departure gate, or because they know it’s the best way to get away with having more hand luggage than Imelda Marcos. Logically, the effect of any such abuse is that those who genuinely require support are less likely to get it, or have to wait longer for it, or else the whole system eventually falls into disrepute and genuine disabled people are seen as Andy Pipkin-style malingerers.
At the moment, there’s no enforcement and no questioning of anyone who requests assistance. If you ask for it, you get it. But like disabled parking badges, it wouldn't be too difficult to eliminate the cheats if the airport authorities had the will to do so. All it would require is to follow up a sample of those who book and receive special assistance, and where they do not have genuine medical reasons, fine them £1000.
Anyway, rant over; must go, I have a flight to catch. Now just don’t mention global warming to me, will you?
Anyway, rant over; must go, I have a flight to catch. Now just don’t mention global warming to me, will you?
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Comments
Oh dear Tom.
"At the moment, theres no enforcement and no questioning of anyone who requests assistance. If you ask for it, you get it."
No you don't. Even if you have proof that you asked for it. I use a wheelchair at home, and have a wheelchair where I am travelling to. Less to get damaged, and less weight for the plane. (Global Warming see?)
Slightly more hassle for the people who would rather sit around and chat, admittedly, but I've never met anyone who didn't need the assistance.
Guess you got unlucky, hey bud?
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"Yet overall, I do think it's amazing that disabled people can travel almost anywhere in the world..." Think I would have found the article more authoritative and inclusive if the word 'some' had been used before "...disabled people can travel..." there Tom. It might be outside your direct experience but us in Power-chairs still find affordable transport extremely difficult not to say expensively risky in regard to the handling of our chairs & ourselves whether by bus, coach, rail or air - with many tour companies running cruises absolutely anti individual travel or at times refusing even when accompanied the heavier electric wheelchair user.
The world still remains a very small and inaccessible place for some mate.
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I have to agree with everything LWG said. This article started out with the potential to shine a light on a level of service that frankly isn't good enough and then took a turn into some distorting-mirror world where we are the problem. Airports are one of the most disabling environments I can imagine, with potentially a significant distance to be walked in a short period of time, and often no means of knowing in advance just how far I'll have to walk. They're one of the environments where being a wheelie has clear advantages over being a wobbly. As a wobbly I agonize over asking for assistance, it may turn out to be overkill, or it may turn out to be very necessary. I'm usually travelling with friends, so in general I prefer not to ask for assistance to ensure we can stay together (airport security allowing, still peeved about my treatment at Tenerife-Sur last year!), but that can leave me literally crying in pain and will normally make my walking much worse. OTOH, if I do ask for assistance, then I'm not going to be doing the amount of walking that triggers a serious degradation in the quality of my walking and if I do get up and move around the aircraft it isn't going to be obvious how disabled I am. Recognising that people may have invisible impairments isn't enough, we need people to understand that it is impossible to predict the degree of difficulty someone may experience in an environment just by letting your own assumptions about their disability run wild and to recognise that for many people level of disability varies rapidly and significantly. Disability can be, and often is, completely counterintuitive - I'm more disabled by the flat surfaces of an airport than I was on top of an Alp. So please, a little less rush to judgement and a little more assumption that the disabled person on question knows what is best for them.
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How is the condition of the boy escorts skin relevent to this article? How patronising you are yourself to the staff. You state the woman had 'no obvious disability', that does not mean she does not have one. Tom Shakespeare, belt up and enjoy the flight!
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Not everyone who needs assistance needs a wheelchair...Yet airport staff seem unable to understand how anyone can be disabled and not need to use a wheelchair..
I need assistance at airports because I don't understand things very well sometimes due to autism.. I'm perfectly able to walk but last time I travelled once on the plane was told either I go in the wheelchair or get no help- to get out of the airport. Scared totally and on the edge of a melt down imagining I'd bestuckin the airport for the rest of my life. I just about held it together to mention that my careers wouldn't be happy.. suddenly everything was fine and they helped me out- without the chair.
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I agree with both sides I guess, it has to be annoying when people who don't need it use it, but at the same time you just don't know whether some of them have a need or not.
My Grandma would fall into that category, she has MS and so she can't walk for long distances or stand for a long time, but she can usually get around OK for a short time
I guess we just have to hope that people will be honest and not take these services away from those who need them, either obviously or not
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I get odd looks too - I have a very rare neuropathy and can walk 10 yards fine, but 30 more and am in agony. People who are in wheelchairs arent supposed to be able to hop on and off apparently :)
At least the locals in my village are used to me scooting round with dog in tow - but I got some very confused looks at first. You also arent supposed to look god/young/happy whilst on a mobility scooter it would seem.....
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I can walk up the steps of an aircraft or around the plane. I *can't* walk almost a mile to the aircraft , or walk at the pace required to get from the boarding gate to the aircraft before the plane takes off!
I really would expect better than this from a Beeb commentator.
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Your regular flying must provide great experience on where to go and not to go, and I presume also on how to ask for the right assistance. Knowing what to ask for seems to be the key, as pointed out by Martyn on the Priority Blog (www.prioritytrust.org/blog/getting-awayto-lanzarote ). But as he also points out, the real difficulties often start when hiring the right equipment abroad to make the stay comfortable and can significantly increase the cost of what should be a relaxing time away.
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Listen here little dude I work at an airport and we do our best to load junk on the aircraft. Why the bloody hell don't you stay home! We don't need to look at your swollen head anyway.
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