My wife has just returned from a month-long visit with her family in the USA. She goes every year, but this was the first time with a powered wheelchair. I have written before about the many hazards and (sometimes) awfulness of travel as a disabled person here and here. May I suggest reading those two posts first, just to get caught up?
There are some (mostly understandable) strict rules regarding powered wheelchairs going on a flight. These generally revolve around the power rating of the battery. It is safest to tell your airline in advance what your chair is – which we did. We’ve been using British Airways for the last few years. Never again. But I’ll come to that.
Travel is particularly exhausting for the disabled. This is why we stay in a hotel near Heathrow the night before the flight. Our home, depending on traffic on the awful M25 motorway car park, is between two and three hours from the airport. That traveling time, plus needing to be there three hours before departure*, plus the 7-8 hour flight time would just be too much. We usually use Premier Inn. This is because you know what you’re getting with the accessible rooms. This time, we paid a little extra for a ‘Plus’ room. This adds a fridge and other extras and we can bring our own food and avoid over-priced and underwhelming hotel food. ‘Plus’ rooms aren’t available in an accessible version, because (presumably) they feel disabled people don’t want/need/can afford nice(r) things. But, as the new chair is relatively small and folds up into a tine space, we were okay.
Terminal 5 is the newest and nicest terminal at Heathrow. Open, airy, spacious etc. This is in stark contrast to the “ghastly” (as said by a friend with whom we agree) Terminal 3. Check in was bloody annoying because we had to go through all the technical information about the wheelchair – information that we had provided in advance. The drone then had to make a phone call to confirm that this chair would be allowed on board. Bloody ridiculous.
Next came the hardest part – letting her go at security. I love that she gets to have an extended visit with her family every year. I really do. But saying goodbye is hard for both of us. A kiss and a hug and she was in the security line.
The difference having a power chair makes is that my wife is free to shop/get a drink/buy food while waiting to board. This is not the case for those disabled who cannot self-propel their chair or are for some other reason unable to get around unaided. They are unceremoniously dumped in what we mostly refer to as the “cattle pen” until a Special Assistance pixie comes to take us to the gate. It’s bloody awful.
Boarding did not go smoothly. Passengers with special needs board first for what should hopefully be obvious reasons. Not so this time. Buses were taking passengers out to the ‘plane, and the six or so special assistance passengers were taken last. They were boarded through the rear door and had to wait there until everyone else was seated before they could be helped to theirs. This caused pain and discomfort and BA didn’t seem to care. Formal complaint filed. On top of all that, departure was delayed by over two hours.
Having a power chair while in the USA made such a difference! In what might seem like silly little ways to the able-bodied. Being able to go for a ‘walk’ around the neighbourhood with her Dad for example. Being free to move around when she wanted to.
All of which brings us to her return trip and why we will never willingly use British Airways again.
Three days before her return flight she got an e-mail from British Airways stating that her flight had been cancelled and that she should go to her online account to explore alternatives. She did. There were none for at least two weeks with BA. Also, she could not get through to BA, either on the phone, nor web chat. As a result, we had to book a flight with Virgin. This, at short notice, cost more for a one-way flight than her original return ticket did! We should be able to get that cost back from BA – eventually. Whether we can get the difference back might be a tougher battle. Huge thanks to her family for paying for that unexpected ticket!
The way BA abandoned passengers and their attitude since has been disgusting. We will never use them again. And anyway, my wife reports that the Virgin ‘plane was cleaner, better equipped and had better food and with much friendlier staff.
So, what will we be doing in future? We’re looking at different airlines. Direct from LHR to IAD seems to narrow it down to Virgin, American or Delta. Unfortunately, they all fly from the ghastly Terminal 3. We so wish there was a direct flight from Gatwick to DC, as Gatwick is much closer to our home. Ah well. We heaved a sigh of relief that the baggage handlers managed not to destroy her new chair – this has happened before.
Stay tuned for more ‘exciting’ reports. Or something.
I won’t apologise for this post being more serious than my usual style. I did warn all y’all that this blog would have an eclectic mix of random blatherings. It’s in the title!
* The 9/11 (and other) terrorists ‘won’ in a very real way. Air travel is now a nightmare because of all the extra security, isn’t it?
