Traveling with a disabled person [to and in Belfast, Northern Ireland]
Oct 2, 2015, 5:54 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 11
Traveling with a disabled person [to and in Belfast, Northern Ireland]
Hello all! My sister (who's in a wheelchair) and I will be traveling to Belfast, Northern Ireland in December for Christmas. Although we are both really excited we are also very nervous. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for us on how to make our flights and travels easier?
Oct 3, 2015, 8:57 pm
#2
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
Hi, and welcome to FlyerTalk.
You're in the "Disability Travel" forum, and some members have already made some helpful posts. I'd recommend reading some of the existing threads here.
For travel, you've not told us origin, connections nor airline; telling us those can help. Some members have experiences with specific airlines and airports.
You'll find people in Belfast (County Down, Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, not the Republic of Ireland, as I'm sure you know) very hospitable and helpful. There's a reasonably high level of disability awareness, so visiting most venues you'll encounter few barriers or people willing to overcome them. The Titanic Museum is quite new, and offers lifts and ramps, iirc, for example.
Check the Belfast City Council's DisabledGo site for some information, here: http://www.disabledgo.com/organisati...council/main-2. Check the "Travel and Accomodation" section. Here you can read the international airport's disability guide, for example.
(DisabledGo was founded by a wheelchair user, Dr. Gregory Burke, and Belfast is one of the first five cities of 39 in the U.K. to have a DisabledGo guide.
“Belfast is also one of the first five cities to be launched in DisabledGo’s new website format. The new features include high contrast and larger text options, a listen to this website feature and an improved design for speech browser capability developed in consultation with disabled people."
Dr. Burke has said "Disabled people are no small minority. One in six of the British population is disabled and disabled people have an annual spend of £80 billion. Those are numbers that any business or service provider should take seriously." There's an incentive!)
Visit Belfast has some disability related links here: http://visit-belfast.com/home/page/getting-around
Disability Action in Belfast: http://www.disabilityaction.org
You're in the "Disability Travel" forum, and some members have already made some helpful posts. I'd recommend reading some of the existing threads here.
For travel, you've not told us origin, connections nor airline; telling us those can help. Some members have experiences with specific airlines and airports.
You'll find people in Belfast (County Down, Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, not the Republic of Ireland, as I'm sure you know) very hospitable and helpful. There's a reasonably high level of disability awareness, so visiting most venues you'll encounter few barriers or people willing to overcome them. The Titanic Museum is quite new, and offers lifts and ramps, iirc, for example.
Check the Belfast City Council's DisabledGo site for some information, here: http://www.disabledgo.com/organisati...council/main-2. Check the "Travel and Accomodation" section. Here you can read the international airport's disability guide, for example.
(DisabledGo was founded by a wheelchair user, Dr. Gregory Burke, and Belfast is one of the first five cities of 39 in the U.K. to have a DisabledGo guide.
“Belfast is also one of the first five cities to be launched in DisabledGo’s new website format. The new features include high contrast and larger text options, a listen to this website feature and an improved design for speech browser capability developed in consultation with disabled people."
Dr. Burke has said "Disabled people are no small minority. One in six of the British population is disabled and disabled people have an annual spend of £80 billion. Those are numbers that any business or service provider should take seriously." There's an incentive!)
Visit Belfast has some disability related links here: http://visit-belfast.com/home/page/getting-around
Disability Action in Belfast: http://www.disabilityaction.org
Oct 6, 2015, 6:41 am
#3
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: DEN
Posts: 1,962
Hello, gallivantinginseattle, and welcome to FlyerTalk.
Given your username, I assume you're traveling from the US to Ireland. Does your sister use a manual wheelchair or a power chair?
For the flight itself, she will be able to use her own wheelchair right to the gate of the plane. The gate agent will put a gate check tag on the wheelchair (this is the same thing they do with strollers). Just take a look at it it make sure it's got the correct destination on it (and do the same with your bags when you check them).
At the door of the plane, a baggage handler will take the wheelchair down to the hold. Remove anything from the wheelchair that could come or fall off, especially the cushion, and take it on the plane with you. It won't count against your carry on allowance. Put a luggage tag with your name and contact information on the chair somewhere.
If your sister can walk short distances, at this point she will just walk on to the plane and take her seat. If not, there is a special narrow wheeled chair, called an aisle chair, that she will transfer onto to be pushed to her seat. The folks who do this may not be familiar with the right way to transfer someone with more significant disability, so she (or you) may need to do some educating to make sure she is transferred safely.
Once on the aircraft, if your sister cannot walk at all, there is a similar skinny little chair called the on board wheelchair that the flight attendants can use to help get her to the lavatory if necessary. Airline lavatories are very small, but the flight attendants can curtain off the lavatory area if more privacy is needed to help your sister in and out.
At your destination, you will wait until all the other passengers have deplaned and your sister's wheelchair has been brought back up to the jetway. Check the wheelchair over right away for damage, just in case.
There are a lot of threads in this forum about the specifics of air travel for wheelchair users, including information about wheelchair users' legal rights. There is a search function in the upper right hand corner that will help in searching for threads in this forum.
Given your username, I assume you're traveling from the US to Ireland. Does your sister use a manual wheelchair or a power chair?
For the flight itself, she will be able to use her own wheelchair right to the gate of the plane. The gate agent will put a gate check tag on the wheelchair (this is the same thing they do with strollers). Just take a look at it it make sure it's got the correct destination on it (and do the same with your bags when you check them).
At the door of the plane, a baggage handler will take the wheelchair down to the hold. Remove anything from the wheelchair that could come or fall off, especially the cushion, and take it on the plane with you. It won't count against your carry on allowance. Put a luggage tag with your name and contact information on the chair somewhere.
If your sister can walk short distances, at this point she will just walk on to the plane and take her seat. If not, there is a special narrow wheeled chair, called an aisle chair, that she will transfer onto to be pushed to her seat. The folks who do this may not be familiar with the right way to transfer someone with more significant disability, so she (or you) may need to do some educating to make sure she is transferred safely.
Once on the aircraft, if your sister cannot walk at all, there is a similar skinny little chair called the on board wheelchair that the flight attendants can use to help get her to the lavatory if necessary. Airline lavatories are very small, but the flight attendants can curtain off the lavatory area if more privacy is needed to help your sister in and out.
At your destination, you will wait until all the other passengers have deplaned and your sister's wheelchair has been brought back up to the jetway. Check the wheelchair over right away for damage, just in case.
There are a lot of threads in this forum about the specifics of air travel for wheelchair users, including information about wheelchair users' legal rights. There is a search function in the upper right hand corner that will help in searching for threads in this forum.