SubscribePlot #1: Rather than adopting Universal Design in its aircraft years ago as proactive customer service for the avalanche of aging travelers United Airlines falls back on "every person for him/herself."
Let's make it a quiz:You are a paid flight attendant for United Airlines, and a young disabled woman is brought to your airplane in a wheelchair (another part of her story). Do you:
1) Appreciate her business, take her at her word about her disability, and help her graciously when she asks for help putting her baggage in the overhead bin?2) Distrust her because she doesn't "look disabled," but decide that you are, after all, an "attendant" and you might as well pretend to take her at her word?3) Flatly refuse to help her with her luggage and tell her a passenger will probably help her sooner or later?
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Musical Interlude:
Plot #2: Taking their cues from airline bad practice public transit in New Zealand denies access to a wheelchair user:
A disabled woman is upset she could not take public transport between Clyde and Dunedin last Friday because bus companies refused to take her motorised wheelchair.Bus companies' three main reasons were driver safety lifting the wheelchair, space restrictions, and the potential hazard of the batteries, Wellington woman Trish Harris said.
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Plot Summary (Spoiler Alert!):
From a United Airlines employee to a passenger with a disability at San Francisco International Airport:
Double Feature Closing Song on the the theme "I wish I never had.""If that's what you need, then perhaps in the future, you should make other travel arrangements."
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