United Airlines Failure Traps Wheelchair Rugby Team in Air Travel Hell ⁣⁣

The Portland Rugby Quad team and the members of three other teams, some 20 wheelchair users, were reserved in a United Airlines Flight from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chicago on Sunday night. My teammates and I warned United Hour of Direct Advance warning and we told Gate staff that we would need multiple corridor chairs and multiple employees to address. They did not hear.

What followed in the next 12 hours was The worst travel experience I have supported In more than 20 years of traveling around the world as Paralympic, athlete and wheelchair user.

The flight was scheduled to leave at 5:54 pm, and when it was time to load, they only had a hallway. Despite our calls and warnings before arriving, the airport services company that United USA brought a hallway and two staff members to help. An hour later, they finally found a second hallway. Then we spent two hours sitting on the plane in the asphalt because United could not make his disorder team work. I was traveling with my 7 -year -old son, and we were sitting in the last row of the plane.

At some point after 8 pm, the plane returned to the door to turn off. He took more than an hour download again. With only one hallway and two employees who attended, our 75 -year -old team, the father of a team member, was forced to help with all transfers and exhaustion.

Outside the plane for the first time, the door area was chaos. Wheelchair users and other passengers without disabled were trying to reserve on other flights. A door agent told me and one of my teammates who could not reserve us on any Louisville flight the next day, either on a United airline or on an airline. They were trying to fix the most delicter team, so if we wanted to leave Louisville, we would have to return to the plane.

The plane never left. We had two more rounds of the same routine. When everything was said and done, United forced us to move and re -border three times, claiming all the time we were still going to leave. No one arrived to complement their two staff members and our 75 -year -old assistant. He had six corridor chair trips and more than five hours of sitting unnecessarily in an airline seat.

The flight was supposed to leave at 6 pm at 1 in the morning, officially united «delayed» the flight until the morning and issued hotel coupons. Without accessible transport, the quads that could not transfer to a standard taxi had to spend the whole night in luggage claim. A person had an intestinal accident. No one had access to marked luggage or marked mobility team.

With United not providing information on how we could leave Louisville, I canceled my tickets and spent $ 972 to get a flight to another airline. At 1:30, my son and I finally left the door. As I could transfer to a standard SUV, we arrived at a hotel at 2 am

The next day

The next morning, the family that lived nearby was driving to take my son a trip to Cincinnati, 1.5 hours away, so that we could take our flight on another airline. United could not find my revised luggage and sports wheelchair, so I went without them. The teammates who did not have other options waited in Louisville, enduring more delays because United could not find CREW for the flight. One of my teammates, who has just seen another license from a United Flight for Chicago without them, said it broke, almost sobbing, when the last delay was announced. My teammates finally arrived in Chicago. His plane was almost empty because all those who could have abandoned the flight for better options. The team finally returned home to Portland on Monday night. One of my teammates who had to stay at the luggage claim spent 40 hours in his wheelchair or an airline seat.

My son and I arrived in Cincinnati and we had soft flights home from there. When boarding the corridor chair in Cincinnati, I noticed the signs of autonomic dysreflexia, a headache and chills, as soon as I sat in the hard seat. I sat in my cushion for the flight and the symptoms disappeared, but they returned with each corridor chair transfer after that. A skin control when I finally arrived home confirmed my fears: redness in my coccix, the initial signs of a pressure injury.

At 11 pm, my son and I arrived in Portland and we had to try to track my lost luggage. United’s luggage claim had received my spare wheel bag, but I didn’t have my rugby wheelchair or my personal luggage. I spent more time presenting a delayed luggage claim. Near midnight, 36 hours after starting the boarding process for our first flight, we finally move away from air travel hell. My son was asleep before I could load my wheelchair in my truck.

The sequelae have also been exhausted. I spent the next two days in a fog, trying to recover from exhaustion and dehydration. Fortunately, the redness of my coccix is ​​disappearing slowly, hopefully, a crisis was avoided. I have been presenting complaints and fighting more with United Airlines, who until now refuses to reimburse me the $ 1,000 that we had to spend for tickets on another airline. They are offering travel coupons for a future United flight.

United automatically reimbursed the canceled tickets, thanks to one of the recently implemented passenger protection rules. At the same time, all this has been happening, it was learned that United Airlines and a coalition of other important aerial carriers are demanding to cancel the new DOT rules Strengthening protections for disabled passengers.

As exhaustion fades, the only thing left is anger. All the experience was and remains a failure by United Airlines, a total contempt for the needs or security of the disabled passengers. The most frustrating part is that our story may have been extreme, but it is not unique. Wheelchair users go through similar, dehumanizing and dangerous experiences while flying all the time. If that is not evidence that protections for disabled passengers need to be strengthened instead of backward, I don’t know what it is.

Apparently, United Airlines did not get the memorandum Digny trips for passengers with disabilities. Let the airline know what he thinks by sending a United Airlines complaint form. It was flight #3640, and the travel date was on February 16.