Failing wheelchair users at the airport
A VERY happy New Year to all. I hope 2018 has started brightly for you? There are always people who can make a huge difference to our experiences, either good or bad. Sometimes they make us smile, while others leave us screaming out in frustration and anger. My first column of 2018 is dedicated to the latter — entities who make millions in profit, yet their customer services are found to be seriously wanting.
Our tale begins on Boxing Day. My mother and I were travelling to Ercan from Stansted airport. Mum suffers from chronic arthritis and other serious ailments, and is a wheelchair user. The extended time needed to fly to the TRNC due to the enforced stopover in Turkey is bad enough for frail passengers like her, but she was even more apprehensive about the journey due to the new disembarcation rules for passengers transiting in Turkey.
We’ve heard the stories of wheelchair passengers on Atlasglobal and Pegasus flights being left behind at İstanbul due to the ground staff’s failure to move them from one plane to the next quickly enough. We were flying with Pegasus via İzmir to Ercan, hoping the smaller airport would be easier to navigate. Our problems started way earlier, at the booking stage.
Mum is a big easyJet fan because everything is so well considered. The online process is easy, allowing you to book wheelchair assistance with written confirmation on your electronic ticket. The airline automatically allocates passengers with mobility problems seats at the front of the aircraft — a gratis service from an economy airline that charges for pretty much everything else.
Pegasus, on the other hand, require you to call them. It’s not clear from their website actually what you have to do. The wheelchair icon on the home page gives the basic rules on who qualifies for this service, not how to book it. Hunting online for a while, I finally found a number for a call centre which doesn’t work when dialling from the UK, forcing me to write to them for help.
Once we spoke, the gentleman at the call centre was very polite and helpful, booking the wheelchair. I asked if they would send written confirmation, to which he said it would be visible under our ticket reservation. When it didn’t show up, I contacted them again to be told the airline could see it and that was all that was needed!
Pegasus don’t allocate seats for wheelchair users. We had to pay for the privilege of being seated near the front (which mum refused on principle), nor could we check in online. Even before we set off, I knew we’d have problems.
December 26 was a bitterly cold day. Our neighbour drove us to the blue badge area where we were expecting a member of staff to greet us with a wheelchair. We rang the dedicated helpline for 10 minutes, but no answer, so mum and I hobbled to outside the terminal building, as my neighbour made a dash to leave the drop-off zone before the £3.50 fee became £25! I left mum to find another help phone and finally got through.
Once inside the building, we checked in our hold luggage through priority access (nice) and returned to the disability area, where I was told the staff member pushing mum’s chair was not authorised to go through to the security zone, and it would be quicker for me to wheel mum through to the gate instead. Fifteen minutes later, the same chap resurfaced in the security zone with another wheelchair passenger travelling on her own, and gave us embarrassed looks when our paths crossed.
We later found out that Omniserv — the company to which Stansted outsources services — has an informal policy to get accompanying passengers to push wheelchair users instead of allocating a dedicated staff member. Far cheaper for them, but not very easy for us. Thankfully other airport staff did lend a helping hand when needed.
We got to the gate and found five wheelchair passengers and only one Omniserv staff member. Wheelchair passengers all had companions, so we formed a convoy following the lady in the fluorescent yellow bib through the terminal building, into a securityprotected lift and down to a holding area.
We pushed the wheelchairs through the door on to the tarmac and some minutes later arrived by the Pegasus aircraft, where other passengers were already boarding. We waited what seemed like forever for the wheelchair lift, which was nowhere to be seen. After more than 10 minutes in the freezing cold, one desperate 83year-old wheelchair passenger decided to use the stairs helped by her niece. She cried every step of the way.
I was livid and challenged the Omniserv lady why they had brought vulnerable passengers outdoors before confirming the lift was available. Her response was beyond useless. I decided to tweet a photo of the group to the airline and airport. Stansted responded immediately and within minutes, the wheelchair lift van arrived. The flight’s scheduled departure time was fast approaching, yet our van drove away from the plane. The driver said there was no security presence and he could not connect to the plane until they arrived — if they arrived!
Eventually we boarded. Worse was to come as disabled passengers struggled to reach their allocated seats at the back of the plane, further delaying our departure. The crew were all apologetic, but really, Pegasus, your wheelchair policy is a sham!
Things were chaotic at İzmir too, as wheelchair users were forced apart from their companions, with no word of what was happening, or where and how we’d reconnect. Thankfully there was no second security check for transit passengers, but it was a tense 20 minutes waiting for the wheelchair group to arrive — again hopelessly understaffed by the airport, with two men trying to manage all. The same tableau awaited us at Ercan: we were left on the tarmac for a good 15 minutes before someone came to help.
By the time mum arrived back in the village near Güzelyurt, she was very ill having been chilled to the bone several times on her journey She’s spent the past week in bed. A report in the Independent (“Disabled woman says Stansted Airport refused to offer her help because she didn’t look ill”, January 2, 2018) shows our experience is not isolated.
Hello 2018. Is it too much to expect airlines and airports to dedicate a little more of their precious profits to ensure those needing such care receive it?