The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Does aviation have an ableism problem?
When Haeley Dyrdahl posted a video of ground staff manhandling a wheelchair on TikTok before boarding her flight, she had no idea it would go viral by the time she landed just six hours later.
“I was on a layover in Miami International when I saw luggage and two wheelchairs being sent down so aggressively that they were flying off the end of the ramp,” she told Telegraph Travel.
Dyrdahl, who works for Make-A-Wish Foundation, is sensitive to disability issues and knew this was serious. “Initially, [the film] was just to show my partner who was in the restroom, but we got to chatting about how it’s a much bigger issue than just disrespecting people’s possessions. If damaged, those are someone’s legs and it’s not cheap or easy to get wheelchairs repaired.”
The video, which shows ground staff wearing American Airlines hi-vis vests, has received more than 100,000 likes and more than 5,000 comments. Dyrdahl hopes the attention will improve the way in which mobility equipment is handled at airports.
“It’s absolutely infuriating to see this,” says TV presenter and disability campaigner Sophie Morgan. “But I’m not surprised. This has been happening for as long as there have been aeroplanes and as long as there have been wheelchairs. What’s happening now, however, is that we are seeing more and more of it because people are able to catch it on camera.”
Earlier this year, Morgan suffered £5,000 of damage to her wheelchair during a flight from Los Angeles to Heathrow, and posted an emotional message about her ordeal on Instagram. She says it was one of three instances of damage to her equipment this year, and one of countless others over the 20 years she has been a wheelchair user.
“What we feel in the wheelchair community is that we are facing a crisis – that piece of equipment that is being flung down that shute is a part of our body. It’s as traumatic as that.”
Morgan, who has presented The One Show on BBC One and led Channel 4’s coverage of the Tokyo Paralympics, believes what she describes as a “catastrophic situation” is down to a systemic failure to train people properly.
“They need to learn that wheelchairs are not luggage. The training is not robust enough.” She says that ableism in the airline industry is rife. “The more time I spend on my Rights on Flights campaign, the more I see problems coming to the surface.”
The US is currently the only country requiring wheelchair damage statistics to be reported. John Morris of wheelchairtravel.org, a US disability website, is hopeful that other governments will follow suit. “This data allows disabled travellers to compare flights based on a metric that is critically important to their comfort and peace of mind,” he says.
American Airlines said in a statement: “We recognise how important it is to support the independence of customers with disabilities by ensuring the proper care of mobility devices throughout their journey with us. This visual is deeply concerning and we are gathering more details so that we can address them with our team. We will continue to work hard to improve our handling of assistive devices across our network.”
Dyrdahl says the response to her video shows that internet users are demanding better care.
“In posting the video I’ve learned so much from wheelchair users about how serious a problem this is,” she says. “I hope airlines make changes.”