Flights and airports
Travellers · 1 thread
Assistance that turned up or did not, aisle transfers, and getting a chair back in one piece.
Flying is the part that frightens most people new to travelling with a disability, and it is the part these threads return to most. People post before a first flight since the injury, nervous about the transfer and the hold, and people post afterwards to compare which carriers and which airports actually did what they promised.
| Thread | Replies | Last post |
|---|---|---|
| First flight since my spinal injury next month and the aisle chair transfer is the bit keeping me up at night started by Derek C., Jun 22, 2026 | 5 | Derek C. Jul 2, 2026 |
What the regulars say before a flight
Read enough of these threads and the same short list keeps forming. Photograph your chair before it goes down to the hold, carry off anything fragile or costly, and book the assistance early rather than hoping to sort it at the desk. The people who have flown many times treat the paperwork as part of the journey, not an afterthought, which is exactly the habit that turns a damaged chair into a claim that gets paid.
The other steady message is that the two services people muddle, the airline handling the chair and the airport staff doing the physical assistance, are separate things you book separately. That distinction, and the timings that make each one reliable, are laid out in flying with a wheelchair and in airport special assistance. Nobody here can tell you what is safe for your own body on a transfer, so bring the specifics of that to the crew and to your own therapist.
Start a new thread for your route if you want first-hand notes on a particular airline or airport, and say your dates, because who did well last year is not always who does well now.