Originally Posted by
RadioGirl
I'm having a hard time understanding this. SATTSO, you say that the program involves getting wounded veterans through the entire airport process, from taxi to check-in to gate or from gate to taxi. (Emphasis added.)
But this link you posted:
only talks about the screening checkpoint (emphasis added):
Nothing in the quoted link (or in the other link you posted) says anything about meeting them at the curb, pushing their wheelchair, collecting their luggage from the carousel, or helping them to their gate.
If you are doing this in SAT, that's great. But it's not what the TSA webpage says the program is about.
Two other points: airports and airlines around the world will provide this service, free of charge, for ANY passenger in a wheelchair (or for people with other movement disabilities, they will provide a wheelchair and this service.) I have used it myself in LAX, DEN and Australian, European and Asian airports before I had hip surgery. Over at the Disability Travel forum there are threads about experiences with wheelchair assistance. It is sometimes a bit confusing and sometimes the airport/airline is not very efficient about it. I had a wheelchair pusher at DEN who didn't speak English, as an example. But I find it hard to believe that SAT is so incompetent that wheelchair-bound veterans are regularly left stranded at the taxi, at the gate, or at check-in, to the point where TSA has to provide this service.
Secondly, if the program is (as you state) about helping wheelchair-bound veterans through the airport and not (as the website says) simply about the checkpoint, it is very odd that the program is being expanded to all veterans. And what happens at SAT to the non-veterans who are in wheelchairs; are they stranded at the taxi with their luggage, too, but TSA doesn't help them? If the program is expanded, wouldn't it make sense to include non-veteran disabled people rather than non-disabled veterans?
Something doesn't add up.
There is some misunderstanding here: it was designed not for "wheelchair" bound vets, but any disabled vets. Think those with psychological but otherwise no physical impairment. And yes, it seems to be expanded. Why? Sorry, I don't know the answer to that.
And it's not just at SAT. The number and email to set this up is a NATIONAL number. It has NOTHING to do with SAT. NO, absolutely NO one can set this up locally. It must be through that national contact - which works in conjunction with the DOD, and almost always it is the medical facility that sets up the help.
But there is other proof (the national contact SHOULD be proof enough that this is not a SAT thing, it is TSA wide - but people here believe what they want, apparently, regardles of evidence), and that proof are a few other post by members over the months who have posted their disgust that TSA employees would dare meet wounded military at the gates to escort them. Why, some even suggest we looked at flight manifest to find these traveling wounded vets to meet them, unexpected, to puff out our collective TSA chest. Those post are scattered through various threads. You can search and read them, to control what I say. Proof that it happens at other airports besides SAT.
But let me ask you this: what does meeting someone at the gate and helping them collect their luggage and getting them to a taxi/shuttle have to do with "screening"? Answer: nothing. But, to be honest, that is mostly what I have done. And there is a reason for that... Too many times Ive heard from disabled passengers they had little problem getting a sky cap to help them to the gate, it wa their arrival that was the problem, with no one there to meet them.