If you’re using a wheelchair while traveling, how to get help, resolve problems and keep your cool

Brian Mattson’s mom is 93. The Agoura Hills resident wrote to On the Spot to talk about a less-than-satisfactory experience his mother had with getting special assistance at LAX.

She’s mobile, but she cannot walk the great distances often required by airline travel.

I’d say his mom’s experience was the exception to the rule, but recent reports from a friend who had suffered a complex orthopedic injury suggest otherwise, as do the experiences of others (I was married to one) who use a wheelchair or have mobility issues.

Here is what you need to know to ensure your trip is as smooth as possible:

►If you need a wheelchair or use a wheelchair, make sure you indicate this when you book your flight.

You should reconfirm this before the original flight as well as any connecting flight. But know that this doesn’t ensure help will happen.

►Know too that in most cases, the people who provide the wheelchair service are not airline employees but contractors.

“Training is required for airline and contractor personnel who deal with the traveling public,” the Air Carrier Access Act noted.

Good to know, but that doesn’t guarantee anything.

In my experience, the communication with those contractors about who needs help, who needs urgent help because of flight times and how to prioritize those often contradictory needs varies from good to whatever the polar opposite of stellar is. Thus...

►The key to chaos control in travel is to build in lots of extra time. You can be stranded in a wheelchair-no-man’s-land (the hubs and I often sat for 30 minutes or more) waiting for what seems like eons if you are trying to make a flight.

►The extra-time dictum isn’t just about timely transport to gates, said Cory Lee of the website Curb Free with Cory Lee: Sharing the World From a Wheelchair User’s Perspective.

“I frequently fly out of Atlanta and the way that parking is set up for the international terminal, you have to ride a shuttle bus from the parking deck to the terminal,” he said in an email.

Not all the shuttles have wheelchair lifts, he said, “so it often takes up to an hour for an accessible shuttle to appear.”

“I’ve nearly missed flights in the past just because I was waiting on an accessible shuttle.

“What I’ve started doing in the past few months is calling the airport shuttle number about 20 minutes before I get there so that I don’t have to wait as long.”

►Lee’s proactive approach is designed to keep the unexpected from wrecking his travel plans, but even the most proactive planner may need help. Do not, not, not back down from asking for assistance. You have a legal right to it.

“Wheelchair assistance is indeed mandated under the Air Carrier Access Act,” said Candy Harrington, a co-founder of Emerging Horizons, which she describes as “an accessible travel information source.” She is also the author of a dozen books (the 13th is in progress) designed for “wheelers and slow walkers.” Destinations include Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia and other national parks, as well as books on accommodations, road trips and more.

“When you are talking about an arriving flight,” Harrington said in an email, “then the rule is that the wheelchair has to be there by the time the last person is off the plane for ‘prompt’ wheelchair assistance….

“Sometimes a passenger would sit on an empty airplane waiting for a wheelchair for up to an hour — and sometimes they’d miss the connecting flight.”

►The carrier law says that “airlines must obtain an assurance of compliance from contractors who provide services to passengers” — but again, that doesn’t mean it happens.

While Diana Dawson, a longtime colleague and journalist, was recovering from an accident that shattered her ankle, she needed to take a business trip from Austin, Texas, to Tampa, Fla.

Here’s what she wrote in an email to me, which would have been comical if it weren’t so disturbing:

“Changing planes in Houston, no one came to wheel me up the ramp so the … pilot did it.

“When he got to the top [of the ramp], he said that was where his area stopped.

“But then he got frustrated because there was no one to take me to the next gate. He had a little time between flights, said he could stand to stretch his legs and took me himself.”

Stars for extraordinary customer service; no stars for the failure that created the situation.

When Dawson changed planes in Houston on the way home, “the wheelchair never arrived so I had to walk up the ramp to get to one. They then plopped me in one, but there was no one to push it.

“A guy finally arrived, was worried I’d miss the plane and literally ran to the next gate pushing the chair.

“He parked it beside the wall in the preboarding area.

“When the gate agent called our flight, he asked that all preboarding people come in front of him and line up.

“He saw me parked against the wall a few feet from him, but he just ignored me. Finally, again, I had to get up and walk down the ramp.”

Houston and many other airports, we have a problem.

“Flying as a wheelchair user continues to be a hassle and timeliness doesn’t always seem to be a priority to the airport staff,” Lee wrote.

►Again, call. A lot. Make a pest of yourself but pleasantly so.

“On the day of, or even the day before, your flight, call and let them know that you’ll be flying out and need assistance,” Lee wrote in his email.

“Request that someone meet you at the ticketing counter if you need assistance throughout the airport, or at passenger dropoff if you need a wheelchair.”

►Keep your phone charged and at the ready, even after you’ve made those preflight calls because you may need yet another number that’s not reservations.

“Before flying anywhere, research to see if there’s a number online for the airport’s special needs department,” Lee wrote.

Enter it into your phone so you can call immediately.

As a starting point, see Cheapflights’ Tips for Travelers With Disabilities or go to the airline’s website.

►If you’re struggling to get what you need, ask to speak with a complaints resolution official, or CRO.

“If an employee doesn’t know who the CRO is, then ask to speak to a supervisor,” Harrington wrote, “as they most certainly know who the CRO is; they may even be one.

“In any case the CRO is specially trained to solve disability related problems and has the authority to do so (under the Air Carrier Access Act) — even over airline contractors.”

►As with most adventures and misadventures, one key to dispute resolution (after asking nicely and making sure you’re armed with information about the law and about services) is to keep your cool.

It’s hard because our emotions and intelligence live in the same house, but you can control which one will triumph in a supercharged situation.

One suggestion from the Mayo Clinic website on anger control: Identify solutions.

“Instead of focusing on what made you mad, work on resolving the issue at hand,” it says. “Remind yourself that anger won’t fix anything and might only make it worse.”

Odd, because we just want someone to make it better. But these days, the architect of your well-being often is you. Which, when you think about it, is a pretty good advocate to have.

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