Tips for wheelchair users traveling by plane

Let me start by saying that most of my experience here is with using my own small manual wheelchair. My needs are going to be different that you’re especially if you’re using a larger power wheelchair.

1. The biggest tip of them is to make sure you communicate well with the airline you’ve chosen to fly with. You’ll save a lot of trouble if you don’t assume the airline knows what you want and what your needs are. This means checking off that you use a mobility device if you’re booking online or letting the booking agent know over the phone.

2. If possible when you’re checking in tell the agent you’re going to keep your chair with you right up until the gate. Also make sure they provide you with a door tag to attach to your chair. This tag lets the ground crew know that your chair should be the last thing to go into cargo and the first thing to come out. Also that it needs to go up to the door of the plane and not the baggage hall with the rest of the stuff (I've had this happen).

Once you get to the gate if you’re unable to walk you’ll transfer to an aisle chair. This is a tiny skinny chair that will fit down the aisle so you can get to your seat.

My understanding is if you're traveling with a power chair there are issues depending on what kind of battery your chair uses. Make sure you check ahead with the airline as you may need to arrive extra early so them to accommodate you. 

3. Depending on if you're wheelchair folds or not you may want to consider placing a sign on it indicating this. I've seen airlines try to force a chair to fold when it doesn't. Or try to fold something the wrong way and break it as well. Yes the airline might be liable for damages but that doesn't help when you arrive in your destination with a broken wheelchair. 

4. Washrooms on airplanes are notoriously tiny. Make sure to ask in advance if the plane will have an aisle chair on board so the flight crew can assist you to the washroom as needed. Some planes have two washrooms where one is large enough to fit the aisle chair right inside. Some Others have a curtain that go across so the door to the washroom stays open. To me that kind is annoying but I can see it being helpful if you needs to have someone there to assist you as well.

5. Always try and bring some spare parts with you if you're able to. For me this means extra tubes for tires. Also possibly some kind of pump if you're able to fit it in your luggage. For powerchair users an extra charger or at least cable for your charger is advisable. Also make sure the charger can handle the voltage of the place you're traveling too. Or if not that you have a step down/up transformer. 

Hope this helps out. Let me know if you have any extra suggestions. 

Porter Airlines - Mini Review

If you’ve been following my blog here for the past few weeks you’ll know that I recently flew to New York with Porter Airways. I wanted to write a bit about my experience with the airline since it was the first trip I’ve taken with them. One of the great things about flying with Porter from Toronto is getting to fly out of Billy Bishop airport. If you live in the downtown core like I do getting to their airport if faster and cheaper than making the trek out to Pearson. First you have to take an amazingly short ferry ride across to the terminal from the main land. You can you see why they are building a tunnel across the gap.

Check-in was super easy and quick since the airport wasn’t all that busy on a Sunday morning. Since we were reasonably early we got to hang out a bit in the nice lounge Porter has setup. There are snacks, coffee (espresso) and other various cold drinks setup for you for free. There is also lots of nice places to sit and hangout even if you’re traveling with a large group. Don’t worry there is also free Wi-Fi.

Getting onto the airplane was probably the oddest and most interesting part of the flight. In Toronto there aren’t ramps from the gate straight into the airplane like at more airports. That means transferring into a small “wheelchair” that can climb the four or so steps up into the plane and then down the narrow aisle. It all worked very well and without any trouble but it’s a bit of a strange process.

The flight itself was very nice, if a bit loud. That’s really my only complaint about the whole thing. Since the planes Porter uses are turbo prop planes they tend to be a bit louder in the cabin than i’m used to when flying. I’m not sure if seat selection would make this any better now not, I was in the 4th row. We got a nice snack box to hold us over until dinner and were offered free drinks including beer and wine.

Coming home was much the same experience over all. The major difference were that the Newark airport is quite large so checking in and going through security takes a lot longer. Also there are ramps to the plane so no stair climbing until you get off the plane in Toronto again. Our return flight was in the evening so we were just offered a small snack or chips or a cookie if you wanted. Which of course was fine but a little disappointing compared to the food on the flight out.

The Porter lounge in Newark is fine but not nearly as nice as the one in Toronto. I get the feeling they worked within the confines of the space they were provided at that airport. There is still wi-fi, coffee and snacks it’s just not quite as comfortable.

All in all I would recommend Porter. I got our seats were on sale so the price difference was negligible and I may have even saved cash getting to and from the airport in Toronto. I think they offer good value even at full price and is worth considering for your next trip. I guess this review didn’t end up being so mini but there you go. Feel free to ask and question you have in the comments below.

Hotel TV watching

I’m one of those people who doesn’t have cable TV at home. I haven’t for some place around 8 years or more now. I have a basic antenna so I can get the local stations for news and some primetime TV. I honesty don’t miss having 80 specialty stations which are mostly filled with junk. That said when I travel I often make liberal use of the fact that the hotel has TV with a ton of stations.

I have to admit to coming back to the hotel after a long day out and about and watching 5 episodes of Chopped in a row on the Food Network. Or maybe a marathon of Pawn Stars on History is more your style. Sometimes you’re options are admittedly limited. When I was in Israel there were only a few english stations at my disposal. Regardless I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll enjoy. So I think it was a lot of whatever was on National Geographic. Either way it’s kind of a nice treat to veg out with some odd flavour of chips you can’t buy at home and watch some equality junky TV.