FabSwingers.com forum: Skipping the queue

By *inky_couple2020 OP Couple
over a year ago

North West

Stories like this make my blood boil:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/holidaymaker-skipped-queues-manchester-airport-24943774?int_source=nba

Behaviour like this is partly why disability assistance at airports is currently so woeful as to be non existent. The "special assistance" queue at Manchester Airport in early July was as long, if not longer, than the regular queue. There WAS no special assistance. I only managed to board my flight with the assistance of KLM pilot and crew and disembarked back at Manchester on the return again with KLM crew help plus the Norwegian couple who sat next to me. There was zero assistance for a solo wheelchair using passenger, travelling alone, who pre booked the assistance four months prior. I was at the gate before the staff and other passengers but was the last to board, having waited unsuccessfully for over an hour for the airport assistance team.

I've travelled a fair bit as a mobility impaired person pre-COVID and it was quite surprising to see the volumes of people waiting in the special assistance area. I took myself through security and to my gate, in my wheelchair, with crutches, a mini suitcase and a backpack all being dragged along. I waited in the security queue behind an elderly man who was alone, obviously struggling on his feet but he hadn't been offered someone to wheel him through. Due to the volumes of people using the special assistance lane, it wasn't quick and this man was stood for a very long time.

Reading the behaviour of this woman riles me, because people like that could have caused the assistance queue to be longer than necessary!

And don't get me started on accessible loos. Waited half an hour at Manchester Airport for the one dizzy loo!!