Among the countless things that people with disabilities – whose international day is celebrated today – cannot do normally or do with great difficulty is being able to travel by plane. Such an everyday act can turn into an unpleasant situation full of setbacks and small struggles. How would the reader feel if they had to take a flight stretched out on top of their family members because there were no adapted seats? It is one of the many anecdotes that unfortunately Marta Morera collects, a young woman from Tàrrega (Lleida) who collects signatures so that the aviation authorities recognize the inequality that people like her suffer and so that they take measures. She is not alone in claiming it.
Marta is 31 years old and has been using a wheelchair since she was 15. A “malpractice” in a spinal operation caused her to have pentaplegia (tetraplegia with exclusive mobility of the neck and head that requires assisted breathing) and an 86% degree of disability, for which she requires help for everything. This young woman from Lleida tries to ensure that her physical difficulties do not close the doors to seeing the world, but she does not make it easy for her, for example, when she has to take a plane, which she cannot take alone, she regrets it. “In the last few flights I have had to experience very unpleasant situations.” Thus, she heads the text with which she collects signatures through the change.org website so that airlines and aviation authorities recognize the inequality that people like her have and take measures to address it.
Because Marta has experienced everything and complains about many things: about the narrow hallways that do not allow wheelchairs to pass through or make transfers (going from a chair to a seat or vice versa) and the size of the sinks, to which It is already impossible to access it precisely through the corridors of the ship. Marta, who has studied marketing and aspires to be a community manager, says that she has had to reach the seat on the wings using a harness.
She has had to travel stretched out on top of her relatives on flights to London or Berlin because the seats hardly recline, something that prevents her from sitting because due to her disability she has no control over her body. And one of her last episodes, this September, after a flight to New York, was the one that encouraged her to start collecting signatures. The economy class seats recline little and she asked for a solution by paying a small difference to have a better seat and they offered her to fly in a different class, but paying 4,000 euros. She is outraged at having to pay in one ticket “what the entire trip cost us.”
This young woman would like everything to be “easier” and not so “chaotic.” And she regrets that on a plane trip “your disabilities are highlighted,” which is why she experiences it with frustration. She proposes that airlines have the obligation to offer adapted seats and that the Business price be more affordable for people with reduced mobility. She explains that since she collected signatures she has received many testimonies from people who denounce situations of discrimination. She has a catheter, but the size of the sinks is one of the aspects about which she has received the most complaints.
Berta Domínguez, who a few months ago exposed her struggle as a MIR with tetraplegia, had to pay to travel to Argentina in a seat that allowed her to raise her legs, despite the fact that she has a medical report indicating that she cannot be with her for long. them down because there is a risk of a drop in voltage. Like Marta, Berta is willing to form a common front to achieve a little more dignity in her travels.
Also from the Spanish Council for the Defense of Disability and Dependency (CEDDD) they explain that they receive complaints like those of Marta or Berta, especially from low-cost airlines, points out its president, Albert Campadabal. And he regrets that the barriers that a person with a disability must jump to get to a plane are multiple, they begin “long before” reaching the boarding gate and depend on the disability. For example, Campadabal believes that company websites should be more accessible to people with intellectual disabilities and communications “easy to read.”
He also misses more indications and pictograms at airports. The leader remembers that 10% of the population has some disability and that it is “totally undignified” that they have to live in situations like the one described by Marta Morera.
From the Association of Airlines (ALA) they recognize the physical limitations of the planes and explain that each company has a policy to “facilitate” access to the ships. They point to the airport pick-up service for People with Reduced Mobility (PMR), in which the passenger is picked up from the moment they arrive at the airport until they board the plane, an aid that “has improved a lot.” But Berta Brusilovsky, an accessibility expert, laments that once the person gets inside “they leave you lying on the seat and there you manage to, for example, go to the bathroom because there is no personal assistance. You must carry it.”
Brusilovsky points out some solutions that could be implemented. For example, special spaces in the back to facilitate access to the toilet and so that situations like one of the ones he describes do not occur: a woman who had to “crawl” down the hallway to the toilet because she did not have help.
Rocío de los Reyes, is president of the CEDDD Andalusia and has cerebral palsy. Her tertraparesis (she has affected the mobility of all extremities, but she can walk a little) and her 98% degree of disability makes her totally dependent. And she remembers the pilgrimage making “little stops” to the toilet on a trip to the United States because the toilets were at the other end of the plane. She is lucky to be able to move around, but she describes it as “inhumane to spend eight hours without being able to move” in an uncomfortable seat, as happens to people with the most compromised mobility.
De los Reyes, married with a 20-year-old son, explains that she has been taking planes for 30 years and that, fortunately, there has been a before and after but there is still a lot to do. She considers that it would be feasible for there to be a space in the back, as is the case in other means of transport, to have the toilet closer. She calls for more reclining seats, which would make the trip more bearable. It also points to other barriers that disability faces, such as boarding notices that people with hearing disabilities do not hear or, as Campadabal pointed out, pages to buy a ticket that do not make it easy for people with intellectual disabilities. and that forces them to have to ask their relatives for help. “It depends on what disability you have, you encounter one problem or another,” she laments.
ALA sources explain that services have been improved “to the extent possible” but that it is difficult, for example, to widen the aisle and that the planes are subject to strict safety regulations so any change takes “a long process.” ”. Berta Brusilovsky believes that everything can be regulated and although she recognizes that the airplane is an expensive transportation system and the space is limited, she believes that engineers should be sensitive to disabilities because those who design are “insensitive” to these problems.
More reclining seats would greatly improve the trip for people like Marta, this traveler acknowledges. Since she started collecting signatures, she has already obtained more than 48,000. She has also received a lot of support and testimonies from people who are in the same situation as her. But she explains that to make a class action lawsuit against the airlines she needs 50 people to report it. “I get anger and frustration… We already have it complicated enough and on top of that they make it more complicated for us,” she laments.
