Posted on 10/26/2015 9:34:14 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Story Highlights
D'Arcee Neal, who has cerebral palsy, took a five-hour flight last week
A mix-up meant there was no wheelchair to help him off the plane; he was told to wait for one
He waited but finally crawled out of the plane with no assistance
(CNN)—A man returning from a meeting about disabled accessibility policies arrived home with a very personal example of the problem.
D'Arcee Neal, who has cerebral palsy, took a five-hour flight from San Francisco to Washington last week. A mix-up at the gate meant there was no wheelchair to help the 29-year-old off the plane, so he was told to wait for one to be found.
The problem was Neal needed to use the restroom. His disability made it too difficult to use the one on the plane. He had already waited more than 15 minutes for the rest of the passengers to disembark, and the wait for an aisle chair -- a narrow, specialized wheelchair to take disabled passengers down the airplane aisle -- had now lasted another 15 minutes.
~snip~
After the incident, he said, he simply went home.
"I didn't contact United at all, because I honestly didn't believe they cared," he said.
As it turns out, Neal said, one of the flight attendants later felt sorry about the incident and reported it to the company. A United representative called Neal the day after the flight to apologize.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
This is a story about a flight attendant or crew member that screwed up. Not about airline that doesn’t care passengers with physical issues. I fly about 100 times a year. Every flight I see wheelchairs going up and down the ramp helping passengers as much as possible.
Now forward to the most idiotic statements possible:
“Typical United Airlines service.”
“Fly the friendly skies. If you dare.”
“I will never fly on UA / Continental again.”
You all have to be trolls. Real people with general reasoning skills do not think this way. Save this stuff for DU.
And if you think government bureaucrats are corrupt, check out the hull-crushing depth of corruption of unionized government bureaucrats.
“Once upon a time I almost got fired for moving computer equipment from one side of a building to the other.”
My friends who worked on the North Slope during the Trans Alaska Pipeline told an interesting story. If someone delivered a package to a counter, the package couldn’t be handed to the person behind the counter. It had to be put down, let go, and then the other person could pick it up. Some union b.s.
Upon checking in our baggage we were told the pilots/crew “over-slept” and the next flight would be four hours later.
One of the airlines lost my cousin’s custom wheelchair. She’s quadriplegic. She ended up waiting a long time for a loaner chair, and developed a bad pressure ulcer from using the loaner. Of course, an eight hour flight could have contributed to that, but she’d done it before without problems.
You were there?
Those were the words out of the clerk’s mouth believe it or not.
I go out of my way to fly any airlines but United. They have the nastiest, SNOTTIEST, snobbiest, flight attendants in the sky. They are just so above the passengers they are supposed to be serving. There’s a clear and distinct difference in attitudes between UA flight attendants and just about every other airline.
I stopped flying United decades ago and haven’t missed it for a second.
Then there’s this about United,,also on CNN
United Pilot flushes live ammo down the airliner’s toilet.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/travel/united-pilot-ammunition/index.html
United Asssssholes.
Typical United Airlines service.
...
United actually called this on themselves. If they’d kept quiet, neither CNN or FReepers would be slamming them for it.
The man was on a five hour flight and had to hold it in. In the airline business delays are common. Preparations for having to use the bathroom should have been made ahead of time.
Meanwhile armies of government personnel are searching, sniffing, scanning and shaking down passengers at the departure gates.
And to fix all this, government will be importing more from the Mideast, including 75,000 Syrians into the country.
Yeah, if the whole crew actually overslept, I’d say it was one heck of a party and I wouldn’t want to be on any plane they were driving.
I believe that you were told this. Underpaid gate agents screwing things up for the airlines. But hey, what do they care?
Anyway, I hope your honeymoon was filled with other good memories. I have been all over Europe and the Continental U.S. I am sure Hawaii is awesome.
“The man was on a five hour flight and had to hold it in. In the airline business delays are common. Preparations for having to use the bathroom should have been made ahead of time.”
That’s the question I was going to ask - what was this guy’s plan for using the bathroom in flight ? Was he not an experienced flier or what?
Save your crap for DU yourself, corny.
Fly enough to see all the fun myself up to and including the wheelchair services, which are not the responsibility of the FA OR the flight crew, but rather ground services who should know such a pax is coming from the origination point.
Fact is, all the majors are going to contractors because it’s cheaper, and they don’t care about occasional issues because people don’t really make choices based on that - usually just price and schedule.
The contractors are generally far less experienced then the company people, and mistakes multiply. And will stay that way since the turnover will be high.
This is not due to an error in the system or the lack of caring by an airline. Somebody screwed up.
Airlines do an amazing job for the most part assuring people who are very immobile still have the chance to get around. Keep up the good work United Airlines! I watch you serve disabled people each and every week. My hat is off.
Odd ...
Believe what you want, no skin off of my back.
It happened to us, and UNITED/CONTINENTAL sucks.
Oh man. I’m in Texas (of all places) and I work in the AV industry. Projectors, speakers, mics, lighting, etc. for big corporate events. One of the companies I work for uses a union, IATSE or something like that. Theatre stagehands union. Worthless people, mostly. If you have a job that requires three people, and you have only one of your regular freelances to do it, it takes 3-4 union hands to fill those 2 extra slots. They will forget everything you taught them on a gig this week, so a different gig next week requires teaching them the same basic crap yet again. It’s all seniority based, so even if you’re lucky enough to get a decent dude, you can’t request him or anything. Ridiculous. They have a set 15min break every hour or two, even if you’re in the middle of doing something. Leave cables half-run cause it’s break time. You can tell them to push cases, or maybe run cables. I’ve seen one dude run power backwards because he had no idea (or did it on purpose, I don’t know)...
The ONLY time I’ve had a good experience with a union is the local electrician’s union one of my buddies managed to get a job at. They actually have required training, certifications, and when you hire a guy, you know his capabilities and can be assured that he can actually do the job. Rare thing in the union world.
He should have crawled up into the cockpit and radioed the tower...
MAYDAY, MAYDAY!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.