Using trains or planes can be fraught with difficulty and danger for disabled people, from being forgotten about at stations to being unable to use the toilet on long flights
ophie Morgan is fed up. The TV presenter, best known for her appearances on Loose Women and presenting the Paralympics, travels all the time for work – she films all over the world – and she knows what she is doing. But, because she is a wheelchair user, “every single flight is a risk”, she says.
after falling from an escalator. He had chosen not to wait for assistance. While Gatwick and Wilson James, the company responsible for assistance at the airport, said there wasn’t a shortage of staff at the time, all disabled people know that adequate staffing is no guarantee we won’t be left behind. If you are in desperate need of the loo, because you haven’t been able to go on the plane , sometimes the only option is to take matters into your own hands.It happens all the time, says Morgan.
This is just one of Morgan’s many stories of being denied the assistance she needs and to which she is entitled. I ask how she maintains the confidence to travel so often. “I travel a lot, but never without fear,” she says. “It sounds awful, but I just expect the worst, then I plan what I’ll do if the worst happens – if I wet myself, if I’m stranded, if I’m dropped, if my chair is damaged. I’m always kind of in a state of distress.
Louise often travels late at night, after shows have finished, adding to the stakes. If she misses her stop and has to get out at another station, she won’t have any way of getting home. “It’s scary and disorientating,” she says. In these situations, her only options are to block the doors or press the emergency button. This can annoy staff and fellow passengers, because it causes delays, but Louise insists disabled people have every right to keep themselves safe when the system doesn’t.
After the incident, Wilson James said in a statement: “The agent was at the gate within one minute of the aircraft parking on its stand, and the incident itself only happened 10 minutes after the aircraft landed. The agent who handled the passenger is very experienced, has been working in this service for a number of years and has a background working with people with complex disabilities and needs in the care sector.
As the guard was putting the ramp down, he made a remark to another passenger: “Well, to be honest, she should have told the station staff.” But, of course, she had told the staff where she set off, and there was no one to tell at her destination – it is an unmanned station. Kennedy worries that things will only get worse as more stations lose their staff, a concern shared by Transport for All.
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