When I arrived at SeaTac Airport by hotel limo, the van literally dumped us on the 4th floor landing. If one is ambulatory, and strong as an Ox, one can then walk...... loaded down with their luggage, no carts nor porters available....across the parking lot to the elevator, down one floor, across the bridge, and into the ticketing area. If one has trouble walking, not to say loaded down with luggage, there is no recourse. When I questioned the van driver about discharging his passengers in front of the ticketing area as they once did, he said he would have to get permission from the Airport Manager to drive into the ticketing area now.

After I loudly complained that there was no way I could walk to the elevator, much less carry my luggage, and I needed a wheelchair, to boot, he tried to call for a PSA. From a long distance I happened to see a porter with a cart, and yelled loudly to see if he could help me. At his leisure, he slowly walked towards me, and I told him my plight. Meanwhile, the van driver hung the phone up when he saw the porter, and left in his van. The porter was very nice, called for a wheelchair, and we waited about 20 miutes for the chair to arrive. Checking in, and going through security was without problems, and I was pushed to the gate. Amazingly, it was over a MILE to reach the gates!

Obviously, SeaTac Airport is severely out of compliance with ADA Rules, and my next letter will be to alert the ADA, AARP, and any other organization that serves the seniors and the disabled about the critical hardship at SeaTac.

Sou nds more like the limo service is the problem here, unless I'm missing something here. Does Sea-Tac only allow certain taxi services to pick up and drop off there? (similar to IAD?)

Sou nds more like the limo service is the problem here, unless I'm missing something here. Does Sea-Tac only allow certain taxi services to pick up and drop off there? (similar to IAD?)

It seems that all the hotel vans were stopping on the 4th floor, and when I looked down at the ticketing area, there were no cars, buses, limos or vans there. I have no idea where a private car would let a passenger off? It seems that the passengers must come from somewhere as the ticketing area inside was crammed with people!
As I stated in my first post, the van driver said he would have to get permission from the airport manager to have been able to let me off at the Delta/Hawaiian ticket area.
Is there somebody from SEA traveling through SeaTac that might know what the policy is for discharging fliers in front of their airline?
Thanks for yourr input, DeafFlyer.

One of the many many ways in which SeaTac's design confounds all common sense is that private cars can drive up to curbside ticketing and drop people off but anyone using taxi, hotel shuttle, parking shuttle, etc., has to do the 4th floor to 3rd floor shuffle across the way. This is also true when leaving the airport -- if you're friend is circling to pick you up you just step outside baggage claim. If you're getting a shuttle, you have to take the elevator upstairs cross the bridge, take the elevator downstairs and cross again to get to the shuttles.

Looking at the airport's access page, http://www.portseattle.org/seatac/services/specialaccess.shtml, it looks like they do give permission to some shuttles to drive up to the ticketing area directly but it sounds like one has to ask ahead of time.

I have been on a shuttle that dropped people off at the departure area, and yes they had to call ahead to the airport. The hotel called and made arrangements before we even boarded the shuttle. This ensures that the shuttle drivers are not needlessly clogging up an already clogged area, and allows the airport to have assistance waiting at the curb for their arrival. In fact, the driver did NOT allow me to get off the shuttle because even though he had permission to drop off the handicapped psgrs at their terminal.. he could have been fined for stopping in front of my airline and letting me off.

While this doesn't help what you had to go through already, in the future, if you let the limo driver know ahead of time that you'll need wheelchair assistance and a curbside dropoff, I'm sure your trip will go much smoother.