American Airways lately introduced a brand new approach of monitoring and tagging wheelchairs in its baggage system that eliminates the necessity for its manually-generated, handwritten mobility system tags. The service was so impressed with itself, it introduced the change in a press launch, one which was picked up by information retailers across the nation.
Within the press launch titled “American Airways turns into first US airline to launch automated tag for mobility units,” Julie Rath, the service’s Senior Vice President of Airports, Reservations and Service Restoration, stated, “Streamlining the check-in and tagging course of is an industry-leading effort that may assist us additional enhance how we deal with wheelchairs for our prospects who entrust us to move their units on their journey.” She added, “American is dedicated to bettering the journey expertise for our prospects who use wheelchairs and mobility units.”
So, what has the service really launched?
The service’s new wheelchair tag is the usual tag utilized to all checked baggage, with a couple of further items of knowledge together with the wheelchair’s weight, battery sort (if relevant), and the situation the place it must be returned to the passenger. The mock-up that American offered in its launch (pictured above) accommodates daring textual content that reads “ALL JETBRIDGES,” indicating to ramp personnel and baggage handlers that the wheelchair must be returned in any respect factors of the journey.
Whereas American suggests this new methodology of tagging wheelchairs will enhance the disabled passenger expertise, it’s vital to level out that this tag accommodates no new data — it’s exactly the identical data that appeared on the brighter and bolder handwritten tags that the airline beforehand used.
Wheelchairs have been broken and mishandled then, and none of these points might be cured by a computer-printed tag. I shared the identical with journalist Andrea Sachs, who reached out to me final week for touch upon her Washington Put up story.
On Saturday, I examined the brand new tagging system for myself on an American Airways itinerary from the USA to Good, France. Positive sufficient, even with this new tag, my wheelchair was the final merchandise faraway from the cargo maintain on my arrival to Philadelphia Worldwide Airport (my connecting airport), and I needed to argue to have it returned on the door of the plane in Good, France. It appears these large daring letters that learn “ALL JETBRIDGES” are simply as nugatory because the earlier checkbox that alerted employees to the identical.
This new tag was designed primarily to learn the airline (printed tags are extra environment friendly and save beneficial man hours on the check-in counter), not disabled passengers — and with no full overhaul of its failed coaching packages and penalties for employees members who refusal to adjust to their accountability underneath the Air Provider Entry Act, the disabled passenger expertise won’t enhance.
You’ll proceed to finish up caught onboard a sweltering scorching American Airways flight ready on your wheelchair whereas a flight attendant says, “we aren’t being paid to attend with you” and “we might have them take away you [from the airplane],” simply as I used to be on Saturday.
