A blind user's account of special assistance at Heathrow
 

Thought this may be of interest to some on this forum:

http://kirankaja12.wordpress.com/201...ll-it-improve/

That was interesting. Especially the part about being dumped in an obscure part of the terminal to wait for assistance, with no way to ask staff for any help. That's what happened to me at CPH when the EU rules went into effect. It was so awful, I did all I could to avoid connecting in any EU airport.

It's very rare for an Airline to directly take responsibility for "assistance" in the US too, the only times I have seen this was from United in their major hubs. Otherwise "assistance" is a contracted out to the Airport, making it functionally identical to the EU rule. At least in the EU, they don't expect a tip for something that is supposed to be provided free of charge.

Yes, but in the US, it is still legally the airline responsibility to provide assistance even though they contract it out. It means that if something goes wrong, you can then potentially seek compensation from the airline. I did get a $100 voucher from American Airlines when they forgot all about me at an arrival gate in San Diego airport a couple of hours ago. After waiting for a while, i had to call a friend who then called San Diego airport and they sent a security guard to collect me.

In the EU, there is no way to get any sort of compensation or even an apology from the airline. The airport may say sorry but if you want any sort of compensation for all the trouble you go through, you need to go to court. Requiring airline/airport to compensate special assistance passengers makes them far more accountable. Just for the record, I am not one of those people who complains just for the sake of getting a compensation voucher or bonus miles. There is a serious lack of accountability and enforcement in the EU system at present.