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Make Space for Us

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Accessible space travel may leapfrog accessible air travel. Blue Origin is making their craft accessible from the very beginning. From Facebook via Christopher Woods:

DATE LINE: Tuesday 12th November 2024

LOCATION: Blue Origin, Seattle

DISCUSSION: Accessible Passenger Space Travel.

This is not as far away as we think, the fact that Blue Origin are building this into its DNA from the start and not leaving it as an afterthought is refreshing. This is not just about innovation, it’s about basic human and civil rights.The Air4All consortium & Delta Flight Products offered insight and experience from air travel.Air Travel stakeholders that typically stall, are now beginning to look very had to initiate long overdue solutions. It is their own tail they are chasing, but the air travel industry must do this as a priority (and I mean priority!) Making Space guru’s Keely Keely Cat Wells & Sophie Morgan triggered many conversations.

Accessible Airline Transportation Survey for Mobility Device Users

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The wheelchair seats are coming, y’all. I repeat, THE WHEELCHAIR SEATS ARE COMING. But the airlines would like them to take up as little room as possible, and do this as cheaply as possible, so it’s up to us to make sure they think about the needs of the users of big honking power chairs as well as the spindly little sport chairs. Carve out some time to fill out this survey from the Human Engineering Research Lab and explain your challenges with air transportation:

Accessible Airline Transportation Survey

What to Do When an Airline Loses Your Wheelchair

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New Mobility’s latest issue includes an article with advice on what to do when your wheelchair is lost by an airline:

  1. ­­­If you have a collapsible manual chair, request your chair be kept in the cabin of the plane — they cannot tell you no if the plane holds 100 passengers or more.
  2. File a complaint with the DOT and the airline if anything happens to your assistive device.
  3. Request to speak with the certified accessibility officer at the airport you’re at, as well as their direct supervisor.
  4. Document everything, especially as it’s happening. And request continued phone calls with the accessibility officer throughout the process. They will try to pass you off to multiple third party vendors but staying in direct contact with the airline is most important.
  5. Follow up. The airline will try to write you off by providing you with a refund, but remember they’re concerned about lawsuits and bad PR. Staying on them and demanding better from the American Association of Airport Executives could lead to meaningful change.

Read the rest on the New Mobility website.

Georgian makes history as the first black woman with a disability to receive a pilots license

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled gripe session to bring you some rare good news. Leslie Irby of Atlanta earned her official sport pilots license after successfully completing her first solo flight through Able Flight, an organization that strives to help people with disabilities get to the cockpit. This makes Irby the first black woman with a disability to get a pilots license, according to the website Because of Them We Can. Read more about Irby’s journey there!

Leslie Irby, the first black woman with a disability to get her pilots license, sits next to a small aircraft in her wheelchair.

Mum and disabled daughter abandoned at Stansted Airport

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A mum has revealed the ‘distressing’ ordeal she suffered at Stansted Airport after being forced to sit her four-year-old daughter who has cerebral palsy on the tarmac due to the lack of disability assistance from airport staff.

It comes as a study by the Data Investigations Unit at the Oxford Mail’s parent company Newsquest found more than 700 people with disabilities or reduced mobility were left stranded at airports across the UK between 2015 and 2018 due to errors and failures with assistance services.

Staff shortages, connection times, gate changes and system errors were blamed for passengers being forgotten, stranded and missing flights, despite booking assistance.

Read the rest in The Herald.