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Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

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Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#51

Post by xaqfox »

qeternity wrote: post #28
freehunter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, I often board with my coworkers who have higher status than me. If we're sitting next to each other and he's in group 2 but I'm in group 6, I'll generally board with him anyway and no one seems to care.

I have my friends do this when they travel with me. I tell them that if the gate agent says something, tell them you have a peanut allergy and need extra time to wipe the seat down. That line has worked every time.

"tell them you have a peanut allergy and need extra time to wipe the seat" Another often overlooked travel tip is that you can park in handicap spaces to save walking 10 extra feet.

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#52

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

qeternity wrote: post #28
freehunter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, I often board with my coworkers who have higher status than me. If we're sitting next to each other and he's in group 2 but I'm in group 6, I'll generally board with him anyway and no one seems to care.

I have my friends do this when they travel with me. I tell them that if the gate agent says something, tell them you have a peanut allergy and need extra time to wipe the seat down. That line has worked every time.

Such abuse is why genuine, life-threatening allergies get trivialized in the public mind.

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#53

Post by OscarCunningham »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #6

Perhaps a disruption in airline industry is needed. Maybe one of those mega tech billionaires (Bezos, Musk, Page/Brin etc.) can pay more attention to this market and see investment opportunities. Such disruption would need to go beyond airlines and go towards plane manufacturers level. The fact that there are so little aircraft producers in the world, so monopoly actually starts from there and flows downwards at airl…

Richard Branson once suggested that "If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline."

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#54

Post by jbeales »

douche wrote: post #45
jbeales wrote: post #39

The headline is misleading. According to the information in the article itself most of the complaints can be solved by properly training staff to use existing tech as it was designed. One of main complaints of the article - that airline staff doesn't get passed enough information about a passenger's disability, so, for example, deaf people get met at the gate with a wheelchair, seems to be a direct result of using in…

> (for example, hard-of-hearing passengers can't hear announcements at the airport or on the plane) You don't have to be hard-of-hearing to struggle with that. A PA system that actually worked would be lovely at most airports. I can't remember a time when I was waiting at a gate and could actually hear what the gate attendants were announcing; it's either completely silent, like their microphone isn't even on, or it'…

douche 10 minutes ago [-]

>> (for example, hard-of-hearing passengers can't hear announcements at the airport or on the plane) > You don't have to be hard-of-hearing to struggle with that.

That's the thing about accessibility improvements. They often improve the lives of everyone, or at least many more people than the improvements are meant to improve life for. For example: if you have to push a stroller, or are carrying a lot of things, through a heavy door, you can use the button meant to open the door for wheelchair users. You can probably even hit it with your hip if your hands are full.

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#55

Post by douche »

rhino369 wrote: post #26
maxxxxx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about that too. I once did the same thing. Went to gate 35A instead of 35B, scanned boarding pass, a person even looked at it. Nobody noticed until I saw the sign right above the door with the gate number so I turned around. What are they scanning and what are they looking at?

This is second hand info, so I can't personally vouch. But I heard the scanners at gates with multiple jetways (for example 35 A and B) have software that is set up to accept tickets for both flights. Not sure why you would board both flights concurrently, but may that was a desired feature. There is also likely a human error component. When you make someone manually scan 150 people they stop paying attention. They s…

> When you make someone manually scan 150 people they stop paying attention

Bingo. This is not really a job that people, in general, are any good at. If there was an automated turnstile that didn't suck, that'd be a great place for one, so they could focus on the exceptional cases instead of being lulled to sleep by the happy path.

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#56

Post by triangleman »

fulafel wrote: post #41

We have to drastically reduce air travel to cope with global warming and excess CO2. It's pretty unethical to fly more than a few times a year. CO2 injected into the upper atmosphere causes 2-3x warming vs ground level CO2 emissions.

I believe the spectrums of IR absorbed by CO2 are already fully saturated, so that there is very little effect, if any, of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#57

Post by bluGill »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #6

Perhaps a disruption in airline industry is needed. Maybe one of those mega tech billionaires (Bezos, Musk, Page/Brin etc.) can pay more attention to this market and see investment opportunities. Such disruption would need to go beyond airlines and go towards plane manufacturers level. The fact that there are so little aircraft producers in the world, so monopoly actually starts from there and flows downwards at airl…

Maybe, but it is hard to do this. The are not a lot of airplanes made every year the global market is less than 10,000 per year and most of that isn't commercial airplanes. (Quick google says that General Aviation accounts for 5000 airplanes, while AirBus is about 600 and Boeing is about 700 - I know there are a few more makes not counted in the above numbers but this is enough to say less than 10,000). With production numbers that small you cannot get many scale benefits from producing airplanes.

If airplanes were as common as cars you would see little KIA two seat airplanes selling for $15,000. Honda and Ford would be a little more. But we need to ship a lot more airplanes for that to work.

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#58

Post by throwaway91111 »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #6

Perhaps a disruption in airline industry is needed. Maybe one of those mega tech billionaires (Bezos, Musk, Page/Brin etc.) can pay more attention to this market and see investment opportunities. Such disruption would need to go beyond airlines and go towards plane manufacturers level. The fact that there are so little aircraft producers in the world, so monopoly actually starts from there and flows downwards at airl…

What part of this article makes you think the planes are the problem?

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#59

Post by ryanmarsh »

freehunter wrote: post #14
CodeSheikh wrote: post #6

Perhaps a disruption in airline industry is needed. Maybe one of those mega tech billionaires (Bezos, Musk, Page/Brin etc.) can pay more attention to this market and see investment opportunities. Such disruption would need to go beyond airlines and go towards plane manufacturers level. The fact that there are so little aircraft producers in the world, so monopoly actually starts from there and flows downwards at airl…

Not likely to happen. It is a very expensive and difficult process to get a new airframe FAA certified to carry commercial passengers, which is part of why the Dreamliner took so long to be delivered. Couple that with basically zero margin for airlines and you have a perfect storm of "it's really expensive to make a new plane and no one will pay for it if you do". There's a reason you see so many 20+ year old CRJ-900…

Plenty of large successful businesses run on razor thin margins, however the airline industry is not lean. The internal waste is immense.

Source: Had an airline for a client, saw how sausage gets made

Re: Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities

#60

Post by sctb »

skyrw wrote: post #48
qeternity wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my friends do this when they travel with me. I tell them that if the gate agent says something, tell them you have a peanut allergy and need extra time to wipe the seat down. That line has worked every time.

So what you're saying is that you are an inconsiderate asshole.

No matter what we're replying to, it's not OK to post like this.
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