[Sandra C]

You are quite right jimworcs the disabled have problems in all aspects of public spaces but this site is about airlines so I will concentrate on challenging them to improve their services.
In recent years I have travelled regularly with easyJet, who provide a great service in that they never patronise me and make me feel that I am not a nuisance. One thing they really get right is that they bring your own wheelchair to meet you as you arrive. On ALL flights I travel with my own wheelchair. It is our usual practice that my husband wheels me to the aircraft door, it is then placed in the hold and we request my wheelchair be returned to the aircraft door on our arrival for my husband to again push me into the terminal.
We do that for 2 reasons
a) to protect me from being pushed around in faulty wheelchairs by people who are mostly ill trained or not trained at all to push wheelchairs.
b) to safeguard my wheelchair from being dumped on baggage belts and being damaged going round and round
Before my accident put me in a wheelchair I fought on behalf of people to get the service for their own wheelchairs to be taken to the plane door if that is what they chose. If your wheelchair is wrecked whilst you are on holiday it would be similar to you having to wear an extremely uncomfortable badly fitting pair of shoes until your own shoes were returned.
The recent Paraolympics have shown what disabled heroes can do in their own wheelchairs. I have rarely found a disabled person who wants my pity – all they need is respect and due consideration.
Three months ago we arrived in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and my wheelchair was not brought to the aircraft door – the man employed by the Airport Authorities knew what he was doing as he pushed me in a very uncomfortable wheelchair but it allowed me no control of my own personhood. If he had tripped I had no way of stopping that particular wheelchair! It also took over an hour for my wheelchair to arrive in the terminal in their system in Paris – at 6 am after a twelve-hour flight that was over the top!!
On our return journey I was to realise why Paris airport trains their wheelchair pushers to do such a good job. 2 people had to accompany us because there is a travelator that at one point actually rides too steeply for wheelchairs both down and uphill to get under a large overhang. I have respectfully requested that the CEO of Malaysian Airlines the next time he is in Paris rides in a wheelchair on that route to note how hazardous that travelator is! It took both assistants and my husband to hold the wheelchair steady as we travelled up the hill even though both brakes were on!! I already know that accidents can break a back!
Thank you for your comments but I don’t want to set up a consultancy I have simply used my life to make people aware one by one and hopefully you will now be aware and look for how you can make others aware that by their attitudes and unawareness they are handicapping the disabled.