Wheelchair Split Again

[Hebe]

OK -- Tell me what we are doing wrong.

 

We just returned from a Transatlantic where we had our 3rd wheelchair in 4 years split in half by the airlines. In all cases, the seat support bars where broken from the braces. It had to take a lot of force to split a chair. The chair is always gate checked and bound by a bungee cord.

 

On the last trip, I spent 3 hours in the airport trying to get someone to understand that we were not able to get out of the airport without a wheelchair. Finally, someone took pity on us and called a mobility store in Barcelona trying to find us something to use. I am starting to not want to fly.

 

Any idea why this keeps happening? What are we doing wrong?

[Splinter]

Have never had a manual wheelchair damaged by the airlines. What kind of chair is it (rigid frame or folder)? Brand and model?

 

Do you have labels on it (in English and other languages) on how to safely stow and unstow the chair?

 

I hope you are filing claims for repair immediately upon arrival. You were right to not leave the airport without getting a chair you could use, although unfortunately outside the USA you have no legal entitlement to this.

[Hebe]

We have a Invacare 9000 XT. I am thinking they are laying it down on it side and something heavy is falling on it. How would you tell them to safely store a chair?

 

Claims are being filed but still have to deal with the airlines. In this case, I had to pay for a temporary replacement chair.

[Splinter]

So you are folding it and securing it with a bungee cord, and they are still breaking it? We have a Quickie II and this has never happened to us. Have you considered a hard case for your chair? http://www.haseltine.com/

[Hebe]

Case is interesting but it appears you will then have to crubside check. My concern would be another piece of luggage to lose. And again, cannot get out of the airport without a chair.

 

I went to the Mobility Store today for an repair estimate. They told me that United use to be one of the their best customer and they were always repairing chairs. They also told me that it would take a lot of force to break a chair.

 

This is also a reason to go in to ports early since I really had some time to deal with getting a replacement chair that could be used on our trip.

 

I am glad to hear that other people have not had this problem. One of the reasons we may be unlucky is because all of this happened on transatlantic flights which may have large containers being shipped overseas.

 

As I was checking into our hotel another couple did arrive. She was in a manual chair and he was pushing their scooter. All they said was airlines broke the scooter.

[ansjefitnes]

Hi, so sorry to hear about your bad luck with wheelchairs. My husband uses one and we never had any problems. We do travel from Europe to Australia, Asia and Africa so I guess we were lucky all the time. We did use different airlines and they all perform a great job with the chair. It just an ordinary one you can fold and they put it in the so called "belly".

Hope you have more luck next time.

[Hebe]

Thanks everyone -- I was starting to feel that I was doing something wrong when we were transferring it on the plane. Sounds like I just have bad luck. Also the Invacare 9000XT is a lightweight chair so I wonder if that is also a contributing to the breakage.