Can I help you

I was shi**ing myself that you wouldn’t have a good flight home.

amt

Same situation...

That’s a tough break you’re going to have be more assertive and push past people, the disabled toilet on a 787 I believe is located in between the forward and aft Y cabin and you are within your right to request priority use of it along with reasonable accommodations of your disability.

Also under the ADA at least, no one is entitled to ask the nature of your disability. I’ve had plenty of interlopers try to assert who the disabled bathroom is for and who it isn’t. Feel free to put them in their place, you have a miserable condition.

I’ve found BA crew and airlines in general to be pretty accommodating, to the point they let me use the bathroom while taxiing, not having to wait in a long security line and rebooking non-flexible flights because you had to twice get off the freeway and find a bathroom on the way to the airport.

On another note have you tried a biologic injectable drug, they really can be life changing.

zitsky

I was peeing my pants.

I got a good laugh at the unintentional typo... mouse dessert. What are they serving on BA these days?!

Still peeing my pants.

rapidex

I am so glad your return was infinitely better than your outbound. Dont let your condition stop you enjoying life as much as possible. I would be happy to have a glass of LPGS with you any day of the week. With respect to your previous job, have you checked to see if you glow in the dark

zitsky

Laurent Perrier grand siecle????

rapidex

What else^

knav2013

Glad the OP had a much more pleasant and dignified flight back home.

Just goes to show, the word of 'authorities' (civil aviation authority in this case) is not always foolproof.

Notwithstanding this fact, I feel the OP is attempting to sugar coat the return trip.

Pretty sure CSD, CC etc. would have been warned of the OP's presence, and his complaint, and that nothing short of 'best behaviour' by all staff (towards all passengers) was acceptable.

Tobias-UK

The Sunflower scheme is not one imposed on an airline (or any other business or travel organisation), it is an entirely voluntary scheme and the initiative is currently operating only at a small number of airports, railway stations and stores within the UK.

navylad

I’m not attempting to sugar coat anything, just reporting what happened. I’ll leave you to make your own assumptions and conclusions, but I would point that the CC told me they were aware what happened out the outbound as I stated in the TR.

Personally, I felt the behaviour of the crew felt completely natural and the way that this particular set of CC approached any flight. Now of course I could be wrong, but quite frankly if I am, I don’t see the issue as I had an enjoyable flight. More than happy to report if I receive similar or differing treatment on any future flight.

My reference to the sunflower lanyard at the GIG ground crew demonstrated that BA still has some further work to do in ensuring their entire operation is aware, not just CC, which will be fed back constructively to the airline, as pointed out , the CAA has nothing to do with the scheme other than supporting its use (obviously like most people they think it’s a good idea and support I, but they did not initiate nor do they mandate it- rightly so in my opinion).

knav2013

According to the document published by the CAA:

It doesn't say UK airports. Although, elsewhere in the document it says:

From what the OP said previously it doesn't seem the Brazilian airport have any identifiers in place. Anyhow, I doubt the BA CC staff member on the outbound flight recognized the lanyard at all. Otherwise the OP wouldn't have been shouted at.

Tobias-UK

What you say may well be correct, but I wasn't addressing those issues. I simply point out that the Sunflower initiative is a voluntary UK scheme, as the quote you provide from the CAA confims. I would also point out the document you have referred to is not law, it is guidance issued to assist airlines and airports in the provision of services to passengers with reduced mobility or other medical need when travelling by air.

knav2013

I'm aware that guidance is not law, and that not following guidance dosen't pose any sanctions. e.g. a fine.

However, if everyone (or even some) ignored guidance saying that 'it's merely guidance, and we need not follow it' then we end up with a pointless exercise of an 'authority' issuing guidance with no one following it (in the worst case) or most following it (in the best case - the best case is actually everyone following it. But we are dealing with situation where at least one airline/airport ignores the guidelines). With the latter (most following guidelines), it would lead to a 'weakest link' scenario. i.e. one party not following causes a stink for whole industry.

Ever heard the expression 'you are the weakest link..Good bye'.

Tobias-UK

You will find most airlines and airports operating in the UK do follow the guidance. In fact I am not aware of any airline or airport that is ignoring the guidance.There are some terrible lapses of duty (and I think of omniserv at LHR and OCS at MAN in particular) who's treatment of some PRMs is nothing short of shameful, but these too do not ignore the guidance notwithstanding the fact they often fall short in the standard of care they provide.

Deniedboardinghelp

I am so glad you had a nice flight home and that BA are making some effort with service recovery for you. However it has also highlighted to me the total inconsistency of BAs approach to customer service and dealing with disabilities, as in comparison they made no effort to prevent or redeem the problems I have had with them, so unfortunately I still consider them to be in general atrocious in their attitude towards people with disabilities.

My (very expensive way) to attempt to mitigate the problems associated with travelling with chronic illness is to travel rarely but purchase first class tickets (I appreciate that this won’t be a solution for many people even if they only travel every few years). Unfortunately BA have told me that they don’t have any specific obligation to provide transport in the class of travel that was booked.

Other methods I use to help are to extensively plan any journey in precise detail and make sure the airlines and airports involved are fully informed of my disabilities and their possible consequences in advance.

My experiences in the last few years have lead me to believe that BA and other airlines just don’t want disabled people travelling in premium cabins (perhaps our wheelchair ruin the luxury look of the brand?) and that even when I make every conceivable effort to plan and check on my trip, I can’t expect BA to do even the most basic attempts to help or rely on their information to be correct.

I have been shouted at down the phone by so called customer relations agents and told my disabilities are my fault and my problem. I don’t know if they keep the recordings of these calls, but if so I imagine BA senior staff would find it very interesting to listen to them. Luckily for them their tactic of making it as hard as possible worked in my case. They told me to take my complaints to the civil aviation authority and ECHR as they didn’t deny breaching the law in their treatment of me, but in the end they had made my cry so many times and caused so much stress (that was worsening my condition) that I just couldn’t carry on with it.

I am sorry to be using your thread to bring up my grievances and I don’t want to in any way detract from your awful experience, but I do want people to know that despite the fantastic response you have received from BA, this isn’t their standard or usual treatment of disabled people.

I hope things will change in the future, but at the moment I feel I just have to assume that any air travel will lead to an unpleasant situation and avoid it wherever possible. This makes me particularly sad as until a few years ago I would have highly recommended BA to people with disabilities and was loyal to them as an airline as I felt they could be relied on to actually care about passengers and my experiences from childhood had been extremely positive. Unfortunately I think sometime a few years back they made the change from caring about service to just caring about profit and this will tend to exclude any interest in serving disabled passengers.

zitsky

Rather bizarre post. So good behavior by staff only comes when they are "warned" not because they want to help?