Travelling With a Carer or Personal Assistant: Seats, Costs and Who Does What

Travelling with a carer or a personal assistant is mostly a planning job rather than a booking job: the seat, the fare and the paperwork are the easy part, and the part people get wrong is failing to agree in advance who is actually doing what once you arrive. I have travelled with a paid PA, with a friend who volunteered and regretted it by day three, and alone with nothing but airport assistance and stubbornness. The trips that worked were not the ones with the best hotel. They were the ones where both of us knew, before we left the house, what the other person was expecting.

What airport assistance does, and what it will not do

Special assistance at the airport is free and is a legal right, but it moves you and your equipment through the terminal; it is not personal care. Staff will meet you at a designated point, take you through security, get you to the gate, help you board and put you on the aircraft, and they will do the same in reverse at the other end ¹. Across Europe this sits under the reduced-mobility passenger rules, and in the United States under the Air Carrier Access Act, and in both cases the service is provided at no charge and cannot be refused because you did not pay extra for it ².

What it does not include is the personal side: toileting, feeding, dressing, medication, or lifting beyond the transfer itself. Nobody tells you this clearly when you book, and it is the single biggest reason people who could otherwise fly independently decide to travel with someone. The mechanics of booking the service, and the timings that make it reliable, are set out in airport special assistance.

Companion fares, free carer seats and what to ask

A free or discounted carer seat is a company policy, not a passenger right, so it varies wildly and you should always get the answer in writing. Some airlines, rail operators and tour companies offer a companion concession, some offer a reduced fare, and plenty offer nothing at all ³. Ask three specific things: whether the concession covers the base fare only, whether seat selection is waived so your carer is seated next to you, and whether the baggage allowance is separate or shared.

Adjacent seating is the one people assume and then lose. Ask for it explicitly at the time of booking, note the name of whoever confirmed it, and reconfirm at check-in. I once had a carer seated eleven rows behind me on an overnight flight because the request had been logged as a preference rather than a requirement, and there was nothing anyone could do about it once the aircraft was full.

When an airline requires a safety assistant

Airlines can require you to travel with a safety assistant if you would not be able to evacuate the aircraft unaided or meet your own basic needs during the flight, and that requirement is separate from whether you have a carer. The criteria differ between carriers and are set against their own safety rules, so the only reliable move is to ask your specific airline what it requires for your circumstances before you buy anything ⁴. It is worth knowing this exists, because being told at the gate that you cannot fly alone is a horrible way to find out.

The distinction matters practically. A safety assistant is only responsible for helping you in an emergency evacuation; they are not obliged to provide care, and the airline is not obliged to give them a free seat simply because it has insisted they come. Your carer usually holds both roles at once, which is convenient but blurs the line, and it is worth saying out loud so nobody has assumed the other has read the rules.

Insurance, and what happens if your carer falls ill

Declare everything on the policy, and ask the insurer directly whether it covers a replacement carer, because most mainstream policies will not do it and will not volunteer that. Travel insurance requires you to declare all pre-existing conditions or a claim can be refused, and the same principle applies to the arrangements around your care ⁵. Specialist disability insurers are far more likely to understand a question about carer cover than a comparison site is.

Then plan for the version nobody wants to imagine. If your carer is ill for two days, who helps you? I now travel with a single page that lists my medication, my transfers, my equipment and two emergency contacts, in the local language where I can manage it, precisely so that a stranger could pick it up and be useful. The cover to look for, and the way to declare it properly, is in travel insurance for disabled travellers.

Hiring care at the destination instead

Booking a local care agency at the destination can work well and can cost less than flying someone out, but it needs lead time, written scope and a fallback. Ask what the agency is registered or licensed to do, whether staff are trained in moving and handling or hoisting, what languages they speak, and what the arrangement is if the allocated person does not arrive. Get the hours and tasks in writing before you pay a deposit, the same way you would pin down a hotel bathroom.

Pair this with the equipment side, because a hired carer with no hoist is not much use. Renting a hoist, shower chair or profiling bed at the destination follows the same booking logic and the same lead times, and that is covered in hiring mobility equipment abroad. What level of support you genuinely need is a question for your own occupational therapist or care team, who know your transfers; this article can only tell you how to arrange it once you know.

Agreeing the job before you go

The conversation that saves the holiday is the boring one at the kitchen table: hours, tasks, nights, days off and money, agreed before anyone packs. A paid PA usually has this defined already, and even then a holiday changes it, because there is no shift end when you are all in the same apartment. A friend or family member almost never has it defined, which is how a willing companion becomes an exhausted one by the middle of the week.

Write down who does the mornings, who does the nights, and which parts of the day the carer is genuinely off duty and free to go and do something alone. Book accommodation that supports it, which usually means separate sleeping space rather than a shared room, and check that before you book rather than after. The room specifics that make this workable are in accessible accommodation.

Do this properly and travelling with a carer stops being a compromise and becomes what it should be: two people on holiday, one of whom has a job to do for part of the day.

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General information, not individual or care advice. Airline, operator and insurer policies differ and change, so confirm the current rules directly with your carrier and insurer, and decide what support you need with your own occupational therapist or care team.