sfogate

As a gate agent I have met many flights that require an aisle chair for a customer. In almost all of these instances I along with another airline employee have been the ones that moved the customer into the aisle chair even though the customer is traveling with an able bodied person.

I receive my training, on moving physically handicap customer, via a video training tape. I am not a trained medical person nor are the wheelchair pushers that we also use.

My question is: if you are traveling with a person needing an aisle chair, why do you not help?

Geogirl1234

My husband and I always have to request that the over-eager attendants stand back and not help. It is much safer for him to transfer without their help, especially because most of the time it is obvious that they have no idea what they are doing. Some are offended but most are happy to just observe.

sfogate

My concern is with those customers that can not assist with their transfer.
I just don't understand the companion standing there, not assisting, watching non-medically trained people do the transfer.

I once had to ask for help from a young man's mother because the boy was very unstable, sitting in a middle seat and quite heavy. I had no idea how to transfer him, nor did I want to. I got a "look" but the mother took care of the transfer and she had a hard time with it. I can only imagine what might have happened had I done it.

HiltonP

I'm with Geogirl1234 on this one . . . When my wife and I travel we try and keep the wheelchair handling staff at arms length, they are generally useless, and in fact make transfer/embarking/disembarking more difficult rather than easier.

The worst is when they keep moving the wheelchair when one is trying to transfer. My wife opens the chair and places it in the correct position. She then turns to help me, and looks back only to see that the chair has been moved! It happens so often it's become something of a joke with us. Even when she tells them to leave it, they move it!

On the few occasions where we have no choice but to rely on the staff they have handled me very poorly, lifting me badly, and completely ignoring my calls for support due to my lack of balance. On a recent trip through Canada one staff member was supporting me with one hand, rather casually, while he messed around with the footrests. I asked him, very politely, to be careful because I had no balance, so he let me go completely. I pitched forward, crunching my head into his face. He looked startled, so I repeated that I had no balance. He never quite cottoned on, and my wife had to step in and pull me upright. Clueless!

So I guess our experience is the opposite of yours . . .

BadJelly

Oh dear, sfogate, here is another reply the opposite of what you are looking for.

My husband is a wheelchair user and we have had no end of problems with the aisle chairs. He does not need assistance with transferring, and the experience is the same with the previous two posters, "help" which is requested to not happen does.

I'm fairly mortified that the training consists of watching a video. I sincerely hope this is not the only training! If it is, maybe a proactive suggestion on your behalf would be to have members of the class move each other between the aisle chair and the seat.

The training should obviously include the actual moving of the aisle chair down the aisle - this is where we have found most of the damage to occur and I have been told time and again that I can NOT move the aisle chair as I'm not "trained".

DeafFlyer

Isn't there liability issues if they let untrained able-bodied companions do everything while they stand around and talk?

I've had my share of clueless wheelchair staff, but most have done all right.

Katja

At least one part of the answer is communication.

sfogate, do you ask what kind of assistance is needed? Keep in mind that most infrequent flyers have no idea what training you have, they are just hoping the airline will take care of them. Ask the passenger if he/she needs transferring assistance, and if so, what you need to do.

Since I'm generally travelling with colleagues from work, I would never assume that they were going to help in any way with transfers.

sfogate

I always ask what kind of assistance is needed. I never assume that I know how to better assist the customer in his/her transfer.

What I just find interesting is the family member traveling with the customer rarely assists or does the transfer.

mat123

Usually if a family member is around, they will offer to help and usually do. It just goes a lot faster that way. However, we have had some gate agents and wheelchair pushers "insist" they the contracted wheelchair pusher company HAS TO do it for liability reasons...

WildKat

My boyfriend always asks the people who bring the aisle chair to let him do all the helping when we are traveling. It's a lot safer for everyone. There are some people who still insist on "helping" though and just cause more stress and problems.

The thing that always gets annoying though is when they will let him help me get into the aisle chair, but insist on doing the straps up (or not) themselves. No one realizes I have zero balance when sitting on those chairs. Even when I tell them they still tell me I don't need certain straps or ask my boyfriend to move so he can't hold me up or they don't do the straps up correctly or leave them loose etc.

Also they don't usually let me know when they are about to tip me back causing me to shift to one side or the other. It's just as big of a surprise to me as it is to them! If the straps are loose I WILL fall to one side or the other when going over the threshold when getting on or off the plane (again neither of us knows just how I will slide).

When we are off the plane and I am transferring to my wheelchair the best thing to do is for someone to stand behind the aisle chair and hold it steady while my boyfriend and I undo the straps. Also make sure when you stop the back of the aisle chair is on the lowest part of the slope so there is some "dump" in the seat. This helps a lot. When I move my wheelchair to a particular spot it is fine if you want to hold it steady, just make sure you do not move it even an inch because I put it in that particular spot for a reason.

Also pulling on my clothes, grumbling, huffing, or deciding not do use straps because you are in a hurry will NOT hurry things up. It will just cause a bigger delay because I will have to be extra careful when transfering and because if you don't use straps I will end up in a heap on the floor at some point before I get to my wheelchair!

I really do appreciate when things go smoothly and when I am asked what kind of help I need. Those things go a long way!

I'm just curious. Were the people in the video you watched real disabled people or were they acting? It makes a huge difference. I've chatted with people before who said they were trained by having a volunteer from the group act as the disabled person. They had no idea that there could be such a huge difference in the way they could hold their body etc. and the way someone who was paralyzed could.

WildKat

It's great that you do this. Sometimes the "family member" or friend or traveling partner never had to help with transfers before so they want to leave it to the "trained" person to help or they have been told by other peopel that they can't help for "liability reasons".

I don't need help with any other transfers, but I do when I am on an airplane because the size of the space I have to get in and out of is cramped and the seat in front of me gets in the way (or there's a bulkhead and no place to hold onto). It's also a weird angle to have to transfer from in such tight quarters.

DeafFlyer

You said it way better than I ever could. I have exactly the same balance concerns. Last year they brought me an aisle chair that didn't have any straps at all. I had to throw a hissy fit until they made a strap out of seatbelt extenders. I'd volunteer for training them if I knew how.

thehipcrip

Add me to this group, too.

My husband and I have transferring me in and out of the aisle chair down to a science, and tell the airline staff at the gate, planeside (we fly out of a small tropical airport that does not have jetways), and on the plane itself that we neither require nor desire their assistance. Yet in spite of our clear and firm statement, airline staff almost always try to grab me, move my chair, guide me toward the seat, etc.

This unwanted and unnecessary interference with our process is not only dangerous to everyone involved and throws off what little balance I have, it's often painful for me (my left shoulder blade is covered only with a few layers of skin due to a missing shoulder muscle, and permanently dislocated right shoulder, and certain touches trigger nerve pain).

I, too, am pretty dismayed that the only training airline agents receive in this area comes from videos. If airline employees REALLY want to be as helpful as possible when it comes to assisting chair using pw/ds, go through the aisle chair experience yourself. To come as close to the real effect as possible without actually being disabled, duct tape your legs together, put pebbles in your shoes (to discourage you from trying to bear weight) get into regular wheelchair, and then go through the process of transferring to an aisle chair and onto/off of a plane. Want the extreme experience, which I go through multiple times a year? Do it at an airport without jetways and a broken lift so you need to be carried up/down the stairs and onto/from the plane.

I guarantee you that firsthand experience, along with asking each passenger what they prefer in terms of assistance, will teach you more about how to be helpful than any video ever will.

DeafFlyer

I like that idea alot! ^ To experience what it is like for those of us with multiple disabilities, they should also do it blindfolded, or with an IPOD blasting in their ears so they cannot hear what the people at the gate are saying.

Adelaide_Matthew

I too can add to the independent traveller point - when my mother (who has no leg control at all) travels, she takes my father and me with her. We do the lifting into and out of her wheelchair, the aisle chair and the plane seat.

In most cases, I don't think my mother could rely on any staff assistance. Within Australia, Qantas have a lifting device they can use, which would work. Outside Australia, sometimes two men who look like they probably could lift her arrive, but mostly either there is one person (who would need to be tarzan) or two people who have no training or equipment to do any lifting.

It sounds like you do a good job sfogate by asking people what they need and trying to comply with their requests. We would not expect you to be able to lift my mother (and indeed we respect the fact that you can't do it, and that this is only a small part of your job).

I suppose one point that is made in this forum often is relevant - you can't always see if a person has a disability: the companion of a traveller who requires a wheelchair may well themselves not be able to assist with transfers, no matter how much they would like to.