Adventures in Disability Travel

The ticket agent at the United Airlines desk in Syracuse wants to know if my guide dog has a license. Before I can say something snappy, like, “yes, she’s Guiding Eyes 007, licensed to thrill,” the agent next to him, a woman, says, “of course he has a license” which puts an end to the matter for the conversation shifts to the apparent fact I’m booked for a nonexistent flight. The agents argue, push buttons, conclude my flight does exist–the destination was changed–I’m in the right. For once in my life I haven’t said a thing. I was a perfect statue, clutching bag and leash. I want to tell agent one that he isn’t supposed to ask for a license for a guide dog, but decide to keep my powder dry. “Know when to hold ’em, and know when to fold ’em” etc. etc.

I joked with my friend Lance Mannion (who drove me to the airport) that I hate all the airlines, that they’re equal opportunity emotional vandals. Then I walked through the pneumatic doors. But today the TSA folks were friendly and helpful.

 

It’s the conditional nature of disability travel that’s so hard. While everyone talks about the indignities of air travel, in truth the experience is much worse for people with disabilities. Sometimes the sight of an airport is a limbic experience for me–I just know something horrific is about to happen, like the time I was supposed to fly to Chicago to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show. The flight was canceled and the airline hired a bus to take passengers from White Plains to LaGuardia for a substitute flight. But the bus driver wouldn’t let me on the bus with my guide dog. He became belligerent. When I called the cops, Lo and Behold, they scratched their meager scalps, unsure if not letting me on the bus was a crime. Eventually I just got on the bus while the driver and the cops argued like bald men fighting over a comb.

Disability travel is often demeaning. Whenever I see a well dressed business man fuming because his flight is delayed I think “you don’t know the half of it pal.” My very presence is often treated as merely conditional, a matter of sufferance, and is suffused with a de facto permission to behave unprofessionally. There are exceptions. Most travelers with disabilities can report random acts of kindness. But they often seem infrequent.

 

My problems pale when compared to the horrors wheel chair users face. Ruined chairs, third rate assistance boarding and deplaning aircraft–their narratives are horrific.

We dust ourselves off, keep going. Traveling when you have a disability is a right. It’s also a political act.

I urge you to read Scott Rains’ amazing blog The Rolling Rains Report to see the best in disability travel writing. For all the difficulties disability travel has hundreds of glories.