In a TED Talk on Accessible Travel earlier this year, TV presenter Sophie Morgan, spoke passionately about her experiences of air travel as a disabled passenger. Sophie became disabled at 18 as the result of a car accident and has a unique view on air travel as both an able-bodied and disabled passenger. She refers to life now as being in the ‘parallel universe of the disabled’ and uses her experiences to power her work as an advocate for the disabled, campaigning for real change in accessible air travel for all. But, while I totally support Sophie’s views and campaigns, I was left frustrated as another opportunity to push for aisle chairs to be available on all passenger planes was passed up in favour of the campaign for more long-term solutions that could potentially prove complex and costly for the airlines to implement.
Sophie’s point is that air travel has fallen behind other forms of transport in terms of accessibility. Adaptations on most trains, taxis and busses are making travel easier, more convenient and as safe as possible for disabled travellers. The significant point is that the adaptations made allow the disabled passenger to travel onboard with their wheelchair. There are dedicated spaces for wheelchairs and ramps or lowered platforms for getting on and off safely in a wheelchair.
This is where air travel differs. At the door of the airplane, anyone using a wheelchair must be moved from their chair to an aisle chair and then taken to their seats. This is when the most critical problems arise – wheelchair users being stranded onboard when their wheelchair fails to arrive back at the airplane door or worse, expensive equipment being broken or damaged during transit and disabled passengers being both stranded and facing costly wheelchair repairs or replacement.
But it is misleading to compare air travel to other forms of transport. The regulations and approval processes that are mandatory to ensure safety in air travel are not as rigid in rail or road transport for obvious reasons and therefore it is simpler to approve the installation of all types of wheelchairs on board trains, taxis and busses.
During her TED Talk Sophie showed a clip of the Air4All cabin innovation which could, one day, allow wheelchair users to take their wheelchairs onboard. For the airlines, the key focus is economic viability and the challenge to incorporate adaptations to allow full wheelchair access remains a key commercial issue. Until these new designs have been approved and accepted by the airlines, disabled travellers must adhere to the current methods, leaving their wheelchair at the airplane door and transferring to an onboard wheelchair to reach their seats.
Which is why Airchair’s continued simple campaign to have an aisle chair on board every passenger airplane makes sense (but is being somewhat sidelined), even though it would provide the special assistance required in 95% of cases. An onboard wheelchair is there to provide safe, comfortable and dignified access onboard the aircraft, for seat transfer and for moving around the plane once it is in the air – accessing the lavatory being one, vital example.
While we greatly admire the work that Sophie and others are doing to highlight and improve accessible travel, we feel there’s a danger of overlooking the part that aisle chairs can play in the journey for those needing special assistance and that’s frustrating. While we await the technological advances needed to accommodate Sophie and others ultimate wishes it would be good if the push was a little harder for aisle chair provision to become ubiquitous – a move that would create equity by fulfilling the needs of the vast majority of those needing special assistance.
By Sarah McOnie
Read more of our blogs here.