Thank you for this. As someone who used to be invisibly disabled and has become more visibly disabled — at least using a cane in public, but using a wheelchair for long distances, concerts, and traveling — I’ve experienced all of this. When I was ONLY traveling with my cane, I had a freaking gate agent decide that I wasn’t disabled enough for preboarding, I was only disabled enough to board after group 1. I didn’t realize this is what she had written on my boarding pass, so when I walked up to the gate to preboard, I ended up crying and asking if they could remove a rope that was blocking four seats against the wall from being used because I couldn’t stand while I waited. It took a three-agent huddle (original judgy agent not included) to determine they should let me preboard despite what was written on my boarding pass.
I was so traumatized by this that I requested wheelchair service for the first time the next time I had to fly. It was like night and day! I was treated so respectfully, and no one questioned my right to preboard.
My recent trip to TwitchCon this past weekend involved a layover each way. Three legs of the trip were fine. Leaving San Diego was awful. My wheelchair escort got me all worried about how long my traveling partner’s private screening was taking, then dropped me off in (admittedly) was the closest seat open to the gate, promising to let the gate agents know where I was for when it was time to board.
Except either he didn’t tell the gate agents, or they completely ignored me for reasons of their own. My traveling partner wheeled me up to the gate while they were boarding GROUP FOUR, and we had to board with GROUP FIVE. As a semi-ambulatory wheelchair user, I had checked my own wheelchair with the suitcase and was using my cane to get to my seat on each flight. Preboarding, not a problem. A couple dozen people already sitting down, some stopped in the aisle to get their carryons into the overhead bins? My legs were already weak and in pain, and I thought I was going to fall before we got to our row. It was a red-eye, but I couldn’t sleep because of the pain levels in my legs, ankles, and feet. I think it was one of the worst flights I’ve ever been on, and it was four hours long.
They took much better care of me on our layover in Chicago. But when my wheelchair showed up on the conveyor belt at my home airport’s baggage claim, one arm was missing without a trace.
I didn’t bother reporting it because it was a secondhand wheelchair that had been completely inadequate for my needs anyways, but dollars to donuts, that arm broke off in San Diego.
