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Tip for handicapped transport in airport?

Luanne

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I would be inclined to tip $5 from the checkin desk to the gate or $10 from the curb drop off (where I have to go up 1 flight to the ticketing, then to the gate). At my main airport ... all "handicap identified" bypass the standing line to get thru security.... but you better LOOK like you are REALLY OLD or HANDICAPPED.
That's too bad. My younger daughter was a freshman in high school when she had a freak fall and fractured her hip. She ended up having surgery and being on crutches for several months. Did she look REALLY OLD or HANDICAPPED? Not at all. But she was. And she did get crap from some people (even some of her school mates) who thought since she didn't look injured she wasn't.
 

uop1497

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I do not know about other people but DH has mobility walking problem and his disability is real. Some day he can walk a very short distance and some day, when his leg acting up taking a few steps is a big deal for him.

We always give at least $5 tip to wheel chair assistance.I hope to see wheel chair assistance in San Francisco Airport improve in the future and
I do not mind to pay for the fee to use the wheel chair service .

We will depart to our coming international trip next month at Oakland airport . I hope wheel chair assistance service at OAK is better.
 

clifffaith

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I remembered that there was a wheelchair thread last summer so dug it out to reread. My neurotransmitter test was a bust, even after continuing it an extra week, so now we are discussing how to get me from the shuttle, through security, and to the waiting area for a plane trip. We will buy a wheel chair before we set off on our three week trip to Yellowstone in June, but I am against trying to wrangle one ourselves through LAX and then Detroit for my cousin's wedding in April. Reading the stories about waiting and waiting for an airport wheelchair makes me not want to go down that route. We might look at the walkers with seats. I can walk for short distances, walking much further even using a cane is painful. I can fairly comfortably push a cart in the grocery store, which makes me think a rolling walker could work to get me to the gate. Then Cliff can deal with our two rollaboards and his small backpack.
 

Glynda

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I remembered that there was a wheelchair thread last summer so dug it out to reread. My neurotransmitter test was a bust, even after continuing it an extra week, so now we are discussing how to get me from the shuttle, through security, and to the waiting area for a plane trip. We will buy a wheel chair before we set off on our three week trip to Yellowstone in June, but I am against trying to wrangle one ourselves through LAX and then Detroit for my cousin's wedding in April. Reading the stories about waiting and waiting for an airport wheelchair makes me not want to go down that route. We might look at the walkers with seats. I can walk for short distances, walking much further even using a cane is painful. I can fairly comfortably push a cart in the grocery store, which makes me think a rolling walker could work to get me to the gate. Then Cliff can deal with our two rollaboards and his small backpack.

The only trouble my mother has had with airport wheelchair service is when she is sitting where they left her at the gate, waiting for her plane, and she wants to go to the restroom. If she walks there, she most likely will come back to find the wheelchair gone. We've told her to walk, pushing the wheelchair into the handicapped stall but she won't do it. She has run into times when there are not enough wheelchairs to get off the plane as soon as she'd like but nothing major.

Mother has two walkers, one four wheeler with the seat and a three wheeler. She uses them walking around our neighborhood and prefers the three wheeler because it is much easier to manage between people on the sidewalks and up curbs and over our old bumpy stone sidewalks. Fortunately, there are benches along the route or she can step in a store and sit to rest.
 

clifffaith

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Glynda, thank you for the comment on the three wheeler! Will definitely try out the three vs four at the medical supply store before going down that route. I was surprised to see how affordable the wheel chairs are when we stopped briefly yesterday to check them out. On the other hand the lift chairs have killer prices! Dad has needed one for well over a year (ended up on floor twice last week) but don't know who is the more stubborn, my mom or my dad, when it comes to making that purchase. We spent a few minutes looking at them while we were in the med supply store and against my better judgement I called and told them to forget their idea of eventually making it to the Lazy Boy store to look -- they need to deal with folks who service the elderly/disabled market regularly. They had at least 8 chairs to try out and a display of fabric choices. My mother has $80K in her darn checkbook for gosh sakes, I think they can afford to spend $1.5-2.5K on a chair to keep Dad from ending up on the floor!
 

bobpark56

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I'm sorry you had a bad experience. It's my understanding that it's not the airport that supplies the service, it's the airline.
Airlines may be the ones paying for it, but our experience is that it's a single central service: one supplier for all airlines.
At some locations, they have let us take the wheelchair and push it ourselves. Once we just took one.
We have now purchased a light-weight (24 lbs) folding transport chair for $149 that is working just fine for us...(and bypasses lines). Travels just fine, and sometimes the folks at the gate offer to put us in the first row (not first class).
 
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bendadin

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Airlines may be the ones paying for it, but our experience is that it's a single central service: one supplier for all airlines.
At some locations, they have let us take the wheelchair and push it ourselves. Once we just took one.
We have now purchased a light-weight (24 lbs) folding transport chair for $149 that is working just fine for us...(and bypasses lines). Travels just fine, and sometimes the folks at the gate offer to put us in the first row (not first class).

We have our own transport chair as well. When we were bailing out of FL when Irma was on the way, there were 24 wheelchairs in line for boarding. We were the only ones that owned our own equipment.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WA1ZG4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 

clifffaith

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The only trouble my mother has had with airport wheelchair service is when she is sitting where they left her at the gate, waiting for her plane, and she wants to go to the restroom. If she walks there, she most likely will come back to find the wheelchair gone. We've told her to walk, pushing the wheelchair into the handicapped stall but she won't do it. She has run into times when there are not enough wheelchairs to get off the plane as soon as she'd like but nothing major.

Just remembered the horrible story from earlier this year (although the incident may have happened some months before). Woman in a wheel chair ended up trying to go down the airport escalator when she became confused. There was video of a man going the opposite direction climbing over the middle of the escalator to try to grab her. I think it ended up on the news because she had died of her injuries some time after the accident and the family was suing. I believe she was in her own chair and someone from the airline was supposed to get her to her connecting flight and instead just waved her in the general direction she was supposed to go.
 

Glynda

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How awful! We stopped letting Mother fly alone last year. She's just not as spry anymore. We always flew her through Charlotte when she did fly as it was smaller and one she was familiar with.
 
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