A 29 year old young woman recently had an upsetting (to say the least) experience when flying from Seattle to San Francisco on United Airlines. The woman has had a spinal injury. As a result, she needs a wheelchair to get through the airport, and cannot lift her suitcase into the overhead compartment on her own.
The flight attendant refused to assist the woman, downplaying the seriousness of the passenger’s spinal injury and stating that if she helped people with suitcases, her own back “would be hurting” at the end of the day. When the passenger asked what she should do, she was told that she should ask another passenger for help, and that was the end of the discussion with the flight attendant.
Fortunately, another passenger was kind enough to lift the small wheeled suitcase into the overhead compartment and also took it down at the end of the flight.
When the passenger went to customer service at SFO to complain, the supervisor at the service counter said that she “didn’t apologize” for what happened, that she “wasn’t sorry” for the trouble that the passenger had, that it wasn’t in the flight attendants’ contract to put suitcases into the bin for passengers who were incapable of doing so themselves and implied that United has no policy requiring that their employees provide this assistance, or any other, to passengers with disabilities and yes, the only recourse a passenger had was to rely upon the kindness of another passenger, a stranger, to assist with their bag.
The question for this poll is simple: in situations such as this, should flight attendants be required by airline policy to aid disabled passengers, or should it be every man and woman for himself, disability notwithstanding?
Why not get one of the luggage handlers to hop on board for minute and lift the bag into place? I assume handling luggage is one of the duties listed in the luggage handlers’ contract.
ISTM a reasonable compromise would be for the flight attendant to find a passenger volunteer to help the woman with her bags. I can’t imagine they would have to ask more that two or three people, IME there’s always one person around (often a solo business passenger) who’s more than happy to help with a bag. If nothing else it speeds up the boarding process and gets the plane off the ground faster.
A comparable situation would be if a family with small children is seated separately, IME it’s the flight attendant who will ask around and find volunteers to switch seats. Air travel is a communal experience and I think most people recognize that, but at the same time requests are generally more well received when they come from the flight attendant, who you presume knows what’s going on and who needs help.
Not sure where that fits in the poll so I typed it out. I hope she has a better trip on her next flight.
The airlines offer this really cool service.
They will take you baggage at the curb, put it on the plane for you, and return it to you at your destination.
If I was unable to lift my bag into the overhead, I sure as hell would not bring it on board myself.
Yeah it costs a couple of bucks, but that is life.
Well, that pretty much guarantees that United Airlines has lost my business (not that I fly often, but still…). I know too many people with invisible disabilities and I think that’s just insane.
If stores, gas stations and other customer-oriented businesses make it a practice of assisting disabled customers, I don’t see why an airline should be any different. If that particular flight attendant was unable to assist the passenger, then maybe one of the others on the flight could.
And as far as the point about traveling with assistance, if you’re traveling for business it’s not likely that your employer will pay for you to take an assistant on the flight (and what would they do anyway during the trip), and not everyone can afford two airline tickets.
On the one hand, there’s a very real part of me that says that if you are a disabled passenger–especially one who appears young and healthy–you really ought to bring a companion with you rather than depend on the airlines for assistance. That’s just common sense/practicality.
It has little to do with what the airlines should do to help you, and everything to do with the fact that in a world with costs being cut at every corner, if you anticipate needing help, you shouldn’t count on the airline to provide it.
That said, based on the facts presented in this thread, I think the flight attendant should have lifted the bag and not made light of the spinal injury, and the customer service person should have apologized for the inconvenience–even if she thought that the disabled passenger would have been ahead to bring an assistant with her.
I have not responded to the poll, because frankly I want the option to say that the airline should be more actively involved in meeting the needs of it’s disabled passengers, AND that if you expect need more than the most insignificant amount of assistance, you should bring a companion or be prepared to hit up a stranger for help.
Well said. Making sure bags are stowed properly is a safety issue and IMHO that is something that a flight attendant should be monitoring. If the flight attendant cannot lift the bag for any reason, why not check with another attendant or airline personnel to see if anyone can or say “Would there be anyone who might be willing to assist this passenger with stowing her bag as she cannot reach the compartment?”
It seems to me the flight attendant did everything but be helpful. If the response the passenger had from United’s customer service is how they feel then that’s their right. It will be my pleasure to be sure I do not fly their airline in the future.
While I sympathize that she needed assistance and didn’t get it, I sometimes have difficulty with the assumption that employees of any establishment are automatically required to perform manual labor to assist such people.
My apartment building has a number of handicapped people who live on the ground floor. Despite this, we don’t have an automatic door opener of any kind (though we clearly should). One day I walked past the office while the office people were being loudly accosted by two handicapped people in wheelchairs and their NON-handicapped caregiver, about how RUDE they were that these women had come to the door (which required them being assisted through the outer door) and then buzzed the office, only to have the office people simply hit the buzz-in button and not immediately drop everything in order to come out and help these women through the inner door!.
Now, I had no part of that argument and went on my way, but I had a hard time with the self-righteous anger of the caregiver, who had helped them through the outer door, but was somehow incapable of helping them through the inner door and was yelling about how the office staff was “rude” by not rushing out to help.
Airline staff are union, they have a contract. That contract, for this airline at least, apparently states that they don’t have to help with baggage. Given the weight of such things, I have no problems with this.
Get some help from your fellow passengers or bring your own damned help.
The flight attendants should not need to help passengers with their luggage, that needs to be the passengers job. If they can’t lift it into the overhead, they should be prepared to ask a fellow passenger for help or they’ll need to check the item (and pay if necessary). From a ergonomic perspective, lifting a bag into the overhead can be very bad for the back, especially if it’s a heavy bag, so if a flight attendant did this regularly over their shift (which could include up to 6 or 8 separate flights), there would be a lot more injuries on their part.
That being said, the flight attendant was being a bitch. She could have easily told the woman that she couldn’t lift it up there, but would happily ask around to have someone do it for her.
So she didn’t need to lift the bag, but she sure as hell didn’t need to provide such shitty customer service.
Mark (former airline luggage loser)
That is bizarre. Every time I’ve been on a flight, an attendant has offered me assistance with my luggage. And I am in no way disabled. Maybe it’s because I’m short.
I was trying to avoid the possibility of people leaving her nasty comments, but yeah, that’s her.
So the onus is upon people with disabilities, who also, across the board, are amongst the lowest income Americans, to pay more for the “convenience” of getting service?
Oh, whoops. I didn’t think about that. I just thought maybe it would help if people read her own description. Um, people, don’t leave her nasty comments, or I’ll feel guilty.
It was an unfortunate situation, but I think the passenger should have checked her bag or flown with someone who could assist her. It’s not the flight attendant’s responsibility to deal with passengers’ luggage, and if you can’t manage your own carry on bag, it should be checked.
That doesn’t excuse the abysmal treatment she received from the “customer service representative”, though.
I am sincerly sorry that one of the ways that it sucks to be a person with a disability is that there are many aspects of life that are more expensive and less convenient than for the able-bodied. And I am also sincerely sorry that many disabilities make it more difficult for people to achieve and maintain careers which pay well.
But at the same time, I’m not sure that that is my problem or the airline’s problem. I’m willing (in principle) to negotiate half priced fares for the companion or something else which would ease the strain on the pocketbook (and make it easier for the disabled person to bring a companion thus relieving the airline of some of its responsibility for caring for any needs which are out of the ordinary).
Also if the airline doesn’t consider lifting luggage into the overhead compartment part of the flight attendant’s job (& even explicitly instucts them not to do that) then the flight attendant would be screwed if they did get hurt. No workman’s comp and they could even loose their job for violating safety procedures. I used to work had a gas station that had simliar rules for when customers needed help with their car (anything other than putting gas in the tank or offering our phone to call AAA was verboten).
Have you ever tried getting a wheel chair through a non automatic door? It literally can be impossible. I can see needing help keeping the outer door open while opening the inner door, or needing someone to help open the inner door because they are at the outer door and the way the inner door is set up the person in the chair can not open it themselves.
I had to take the door off my bedroom because it can not be opened in a chair. In a perfect world all doors would slide into pockets or be automatic doors, with the door frames wide enough to go through easily.