On a recent trip to France, I had to go through London's Heathrow airport. What a disaster that place is for disabled people. If you don't want help. The way assistance works at airports is that if you want assistance, you request it on your plane ticket. I never do that. During my flight, British Airways radioed Heathrow to tell them I needed assistance. So when I got off a plane they put me on a cart and drove me under the terminals in tunnels that look right out of a Doctor Who episode. The cart certainly made my trip faster. But I didn't actually require it.
After customs, I was led to a disabled waiting room. My next flight had yet to be assigned a gate. My plane ticket was taken by a Heathrow rep and I was told to wait until I could be assisted to my gate. I was really uncomfortable by this point. I hadn't requested help and now my plane ticket had been taken. I wanted to go shopping, get a coffee. It was 1AM to me and I was tired and confused about what was going on. Maybe I could have demanded my ticket back and left. At the time, it felt like I'd been locked up for my own protection. Eventually, one of my brother's texted me and I told him to come fetch me. I felt embarrassed and incapable when my brothers showed up to rescue me.
My treatment reminded me of being a tourist in London a few years ago. I went to the Tower Bridge with my brother. The attendant wouldn't let my brother pay because he was my "caretaker." Which is so insulting. My reaction to her was that no, I'm his caretaker. Oddly, he got in free but I had to pay. There's just something off with how disabled people are treated in the UK.
A week later, I was more prepared for my connecting flight through Heathrow. I learned the magic words to tell British Airways to leave me alone, "I'm traveling with family." So there was no one at the airport prepped to fetch me. I did have to turn down help from all the staff I met, which was annoying. I was able to get on a bus and make my way to Terminal 5, without help, thank you very much. I made my way to security where everything went pear shaped. Security refused to let me into the terminal without an escort. They actually told me that it was against policy for a blind person to walk through the terminal unassisted. That struck me as probably not true but I didn't have a choice. The guard took himself off the line to "assist" me. How many passengers were delayed because he was gone? Who wasn't assisted who needed it more than me?
Over the next hour, the security guard acted as my personal Sherpa. He helped me pick out a toy for my son. We went to the pharmacy. He carried my shopping bags. And I made him follow me into a pub and wait with me while I drank a pint. He was a nice guy and we had a frank conversation about disability. I told him that while in France, or Canada or the US, if I needed help I could request it. If I told the staff that I could do it, I was left alone. At Heathrow, it was assumed that I couldn't do anything and it was hard not to be insulted by that. My minder told me to send Heathrow an email.
After I got home, I sent that email to Heathrow. A representative from BAA plc, the company that runs Heathrow, contacted me. He asked me what the best time to reach me would be. I replied with times and my email was bounced back by BAA's servers has a violation of their email policy. You can't make this stuff up. BAA eventually got a hold of me on the phone. The rep apologized and said that my treatment at Heathrow was a violation of their policy. As I had suspected, the disability policy had been put together with the assistance of blind organizations in the UK. Self determination for the disabled is specific part of their policy that the staff had received training on. As soon as I told them that I wanted to be left alone, that's exactly what they should have done.
I told the rep that if you tell a disabled person that they can't do something because of their disability, that's a form of discrimination. The rep agreed and told me to contact him next time I'm flying through Heathrow. Which doesn't sound like much of a policy. He did say that he'd be contacting the "contractors" in Terminal 5 about my treatment. The management at BAA and the staff are clearly working on different incentives.
There have been several scandals in the past couple of years over the poor treatment of disabled persons at Heathrow. I suspect the staff is more afraid of their line managers seeing a blind person unassisted than they are in following their policy. They were trying to head off scandal by helping me, whether I want help or not. The staff needs to be corrected. The reason why airports rely upon the self reporting system for assistance is that there are almost always more people that need help that staff available. The system breaks down if people who don't want assistance have it forced on them. At the same time, I don't want my story to cause other people not to be helped who need it.
I posted my story to the United Kingdom forum on Reddit. The reaction was typical Reddit in someways. I got a lot of criticism for being a fat, ugly American. For being spoiled and ungrateful. They missed the point that in requesting to be left alone, I'm freeing the staff to help someone else who actually needs it. Also they didn't understand the emotional impact that being treated like a child has on someone with a disability.
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