Rolling through Dallas and Chicago

[cjsmith]

I just called American Airlines and reserved myself some wheelchair assistance for connecting between two flights. That felt weird. It's something I've never done before.

I didn't know before looking at the airline's web page, but apparently there are three flavors of mobility assistance: passenger can walk but needs help with stairs, passenger can walk but needs help due to the distance from gate to gate, passenger can't walk much if at all and needs help getting to and from the seat on the aircraft. I fall neatly into a category for the first time in my life.

Comments

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Business trip?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Square dance convention. You can imagine how much actual square dancing I'm going to be doing! We're also visiting Rob's family, who live in the city where the convention is being held.

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

And ORD SUCKS to get around in walking. So at least you will have someone who knows the way!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I strongly dislike O'Hare. I'm surprised Rob accepted a flight that goes back through there -- we were stuck there for 24h once and haven't willingly connected through it since! :-)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Which is your flavor? Mine is generally the second. I need the wheelchairs for anything like lines or standing around, because that hurts more than almost anything, and I need the electric vehicles for gate-to-gate. I first used them in Seattle, in 2001 -- and note that you sometimes need to be on top of it. Going to Vancouver (we rented a car in Seattle and drove north) it was fine at SJC, but when we got to the Seattle airport, they called the electric vehicle and told me to wait, and quite a bit later, they called to find out where the person was, and the vehicle had gone to the wrong place, where I wasn't, assumed I'd left on my own, and vanished. So you need to pay attention to time and make sure you're not forgotten.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

My flavor is the second, also: I can get on/off the aircraft, I can do stairs (as long as I can turn around and go backwards for the descent), but standing or walking for any length of time is awful.

Thanks for the heads-up on being aware. I figure there's probably a lot of waiting around involved with this, but I'm not sure how much is normal.

[firecat]

I would be in the category of "passenger can walk but needs help due to the distance from gate to gate and the short time between connecting flights."

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Heh - I suspect wheelchair assistance is slower than walking, even at the speed I have to go. I've seen people wait a while for someone to show up at the gate.

Airline travel was never difficult for me before. *sigh*. Now it will be.

[firecat]

I think that some of the passengers in this category get to ride the cool electric "golf carts" though. Those move pretty fast.

Don't get me started on all the ways airline travel is a hassle.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I call those the feepy-carts because they make that horrible eee eee eee noise. I would be jazzed to ride the cool electric carts once my hearing in that exact frequency was burned out. :-) They do move quickly! Wheeeeee!

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

Maybe when you're *in* the cart, you can't hear that awful noise?

I've been in some airports where that's what they use instead of wheelchairs, mostly. Everyone's riding around facing outward, looking like a giant-sized version of some playskool toy...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I can hear it when I'm riding. I got a few rides in carts this weekend! They're a lot faster than wheelchairs... once they show up. (I also declined a few rides in carts when it became clear that even at my walking speed I'd get to the gate quicker on my own.)