Greatest Hits #2: A Story of Broken Wheelchairs

Or: Why Its Egregious for the Airline to Say "Sorry for the Inconvenience" After Destroying Someone's Mobility Device

Photo Description: Author with brown hair, glasses, and face mask wearing blue sweatshirt and black pants is seated on airplane next to window waiting on a plane for return of her wheelchair after other passengers have deboarded.

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Dearest Readers: Thanks so much for your support and rolling on this journey with me! Today’s re-published article is the second most viewed piece from my first year of Rolling With It and features the tribulations of air travel with a wheelchair. Hope you are enjoying re-visiting these newsletter issues with me. See you in September for brand new content and stories! Warmly, Kelly

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Imagine you take an airplane trip. The flight goes smoothly and you arrive at your destination airport. The twist in the story is that when you are ready to debark and go on your merry way, the airline removes your legs, hands them to you (thanks?), says “sorry for the inconvenience and have a great day”, and leaves you to figure out how exactly you are going to get anywhere. (Apologies for the graphic description. Please bear with me while I explain.)

I’m sorry to say that this type of scenario has happened to me and people I know many times. In each case I have entrusted my wheelchair (or mobility, as it were) to the airline only to have my wheelchair seriously damaged and even totaled. And I’m serious about the “sorry for the inconvenience line” — they actually said that with a straight face to me after destroying my wheelchair and thought it was an adequate response.

My wheelchair is my mobility, as the saying goes. I can’t get far (or anywhere really) on foot. I need it to go anywhere and everywhere. It isn’t “optional” or “nice to have” or a “convenience”. It is essential. 

Knock on wood, I have never had a bag get lost by an airline. That would definitely be an inconvenience, but I would manage. I could pick up toothpaste at a drug store and be OK. But break my wheelchair and I am in big trouble. 

Imagine it. Suddenly you have no ability to move. How do you get to any of the destinations you had booked? Hotel? Tours? How do you get from the airplane door to the train or taxi? How do you get to the bathroom? Without proper equipment to assist, you would be lost.

While I have a few stories of broken wheelchairs the worst one was especially heinous. My husband and I were traveling to my home town for a milestone high school reunion. We flew so that I would have my motorized wheelchair to take to the event, so I could motor independently and move about the room (just like I did when I was actually in high school). There was no direct flight so we had one short flight, a layover in an airport, then another short flight. 

When we arrived at our layover airport it took a long time for my wheelchair to be brought to the door of the plane. This in itself was (and is) not unusual. The wait can be a half hour or more typically. Often we get to the luggage carousel and our bag is set to the side because everyone else from the flight has collected their luggage and left by the time I received my wheelchair and could proceed to the carousel. Honestly, I wish I knew what they were doing with my wheelchair (joyriding perhaps?) because it is supposed to be the last item on and first item off.

Anyway, I was seated on the plane, but my husband Richard was waiting at the airplane door when they dropped off the wheelchair and practically ran away. He tried to turn it on and it stayed dark. He transferred me in and we systematically checked all the cords to the batteries and the controller. Everything looked fine but the wheelchair was dead. We explained the situation to the staff and they were unmoved. We said: “we gave you [the airline] a working chair and you somehow broke it”, and they did nothing to help. Time was running short and we had to get to our next flight. So, without any assistance Richard had to push me in a heavy power wheelchair (about 250+ plus me!) to the opposite end of the airport for our next flight.

We landed after 11 pm and the airport was empty. There was no one at the desk we could speak to about my wheelchair — no replacement available. But a solitary worker said if one of the airport wheelchairs went missing over the weekend and was returned, he doubted anyone would notice. 

The next day I started calling the airline early and spent hours shouting. I tried to be calm and reign in my fury, but the lack of caring and phrases like “sorry for the inconvenience” infuriated me even more. It was like pouring gasoline on a bonfire. They couldn’t get anyone to come and repair my wheelchair during the brief trip, so it lay lifeless in the car. All they did was deliver a chair (that was even more cumbersome and uncomfortable than the airport chair) for me to use temporarily. 

While we still attended the reunion event, it was not the experience I had wanted. I was glad to be able to go and use a temporary wheelchair, but Richard had to push me everywhere and I felt the loss of my independence. 

Somehow, we made it back home with my broken motorized wheelchair. The airline sent a wheelchair repair tech to see if he could fix it and he could not. So, the airline had to buy me a brand new wheelchair to replace it. Thankfully this was not a fight as I know this is required by law and was sure to tell the airline this fact.

Over the years I have had a lot of wheelchair repairs and never have they been unable to fix my wheelchair. It was a first for me and still hasn’t been repeated. Somehow the airline had really broken it creatively. It made me think of the commercials I remembered seeing as a child for luggage that withstood apes jumping on it at the airport during baggage handling. 

It’s a serious affront to me that the airline never compensated me for what was a largely ruined trip. They never even offered and I asked, but they refused. I learned later that the law protects them from making compensatory damages, which is terribly wrong. If you remove/break/destroy someone’s legs, I think you owe them something. A new wheelchair is not compensation — it is making me whole with a replacement for what they destroyed. The wasted time (not just during the trip but also the time I spent in getting my wheelchair not repaired and then eventually replaced), stress, and having to change my plans during my trip because I didn’t have a functioning wheelchair was never compensated.

I wish I could say that airlines were improving in how they handle wheelchairs (and other mobility devices) and treat disabled passengers. But it is not the case. The data and reports from the last several years indicate these problems are only increasing. In my decades of flying, it has only worsened. And the cavalier “sorry for the inconvenience” continues to be misused.

Another example of wheelchair carnage and total disrespect was very recently caught on video and posted on social media. Investigations are being promised, but the frustration among disabled passengers is high because mistreatment of people and their devices continues to happen over and over without serious consequences to the airlines. They continue to perpetuate this disrespect and harm because they can get away with it.

While its gruesome to imagine, the violence of removing someone’s legs is the best comparison because it is so shocking. We all know that it would be very bad and unacceptable if this happened to nondisabled passengers on a regular basis. So why does it continue to be OK to regularly break wheelchairs?

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