CEREBRAL PALSY STORIES: Airplane Aisle Chair Basics 101-The Fundamentals Of Disabled Air Travel

The aisles of an airplane are very narrow.  Watch out for the safety of your arms and legs!

As many of you who follow this blog know, my family and I have a passion for traveling.  Ever since I was born, we've traveled to numerous places around the world.  Sometimes these traveling adventures are road trips.  Other times they involve using air travel to get to our final destination for whatever trip we are on at a certain time.

If you've been following our latest traveling adventure, then you know that we just went on another European excursion for the 10th time to Berlin and and Munich in Germany as well as Prague in the Czech Republic.  What you may not know too much about is the process involved in getting someone with a physical disability or impairment on an airplane.

Your basic Airplane Aisle Chair.  

These chairs are small in size because they have to to be wheeled down the narrow aisles of an airplane.

One of the most common tools that airlines use when helping someone who has a physical disability onto an airplane and into their seat is what is known as an aisle chair.  Now if your assigned seat is close to the the front of the plane, then it would probably be best to let the airline employees know that you can manage to board without the use of an aisle chair if you are able to do so with assistance from your caregivers.  I should also mention for those who might be wondering just when a person with a disability or any other special needs boards an airplane, we usually are the first ones to get on the plane in the boarding process and the last ones to get off.  

If you are not assigned a seat towards the front of the plane and are given a seat in row 29 for example, then the use of an aisle chair is probably required unless an airline is nice enough to upgrade your seats closer to the front of the airplane.  It's during those times when all options for potential seat upgrades have been exhausted that people with disabilities and those they are traveling with (family members or otherwise), need to know what to expect and do while using an aisle chair when traveling by air.

To begin with one of the first things to take into account about an airplane aisle chair is just how narrow, skinny and cramped they are compared to a regular manual or power wheelchair.  The reason for this is because the aisles in an airplane are pretty narrow and cramped to begin with, so it wouldn't make sense to design any aisle chair using the specifications for a regular manual or power wheelchair.

From my own personal experience of using aisle chairs, I can tell you that it does get easier to use one the more you practice with it and the more you travel and see the world.  As an example, one of things that I started doing to practice and prepare myself for this latest trip to Europe and even as far back as our trip to Costa Rica last year was seeing how well I could fold my arms in for those tight spaces on an airplane between the arm rests of the seats and the aisle.  Based on this latest traveling adventure, I feel that I've got the arm-folding move down pat.

Another thing to consider about airplane aisle chairs is the kind of straps they use to secure you in place when boarding for your flight and where they are located on the chair itself.  Usually there are two sets of strap restraints that go across both the chest and arm area of your body and another set of restraints that go across your legs and feet.  Most aisle chairs even come equipped with arm rests on each side to give you even more of a secure feeling when heading to your seat on the plane.

Even with all the security the aisle chair restraints helps provide, it is very important that you practice with the arm folding movements I mentioned above and see how well you can do with it if your are considering traveling somewhere on an airplane because it is only going to help you in the long run when traveling by air.  Not to mention the fact that that is one of the questions the airport employees who are responsible for getting you on the airplane and to your seat will ask you before or even when boarding the plane.  Another thing that is important to keep in mind while on an aisle chair is that once you are strapped in and secured as best as possible is to stay as still as you can, keep calm and not panic if anything goes wrong because any movement you might make while on the chair will have an impact on how fast you are able to be transported off the plane.

One particular aisle chair adventure that didn't go quite as planned on our latest trip was when we had to get off our flight from Philadelphia to Dallas while heading home from Munich Germany.  Let's just say that the two gentlemen who were in charge of getting me off the plane did not know what they were doing at all.  By the time I was off the plane my body had slid almost entirely off the aisle chair.  It also didn't help that the two guys who helped me off the plane with very limited English speaking skills didn't do a good job of listening to the instructions given by my Dad who was also trying to help with the deplaning process.

It's nice to know that even with that little deplaning obstacle, my family and I made it home safe and sound once again from another successful vacation adventure.  In terms of your future travels whether you are disabled or not, I hope this post give you a little insight into another aspect of traveling with a disability that not too many people think about and may take for granted.

Tim Musick
Copyright 2016
All Rights Reserved.  

  

CEREBRAL PALSY STORIES: Adventures Of A New Power Traveling Wheelchair - UPDATE

UPDATE ON THE POWER CHAIR FROM DARRYL - NOVEMBER 2017:

Well, it's no secret that the power chair from GeoCruiser came out of the gate underwhelmingly. As you can see from the story below, the chair actually started falling apart while we were in Germany (necessitating a visit to the Berlin version of Home Depot to find wrenches and parts for an 'on the fly' repair) and went so frustratingly slow that I ended up pushing it in manual mode for most of the trip.

While that was good for exercise and weight loss on the trip, it was also very frustrating and was making me rethink what I thought was a good idea to buy this light-weight fold-able power chair for traveling.

The chair comes with a one-year warranty so off to San Jose it went, via UPS, for the company to make it right.  It came back within a month.

Fast forward to May when we went to Texas and the Florida Keys. While at first the chair seemed a bit better, as the time went on, it went right back to just crawling after about five minutes of operation.

At least this time, it wasn't falling to pieces on us.

Phone calls for help were made to GeoCruiser's dealer in San Jose, who walked me through various tips to try to improve the speed of the chair. Among the advice was to turn the batteries over and, when I told them one of the batteries wouldn't lock into place, to push it in very forcefully.

Nothing worked so off the chair went to San Jose (this is where I found out that the one year warranty only covered shipping back for the first two months - I had to pay shipping back this time since it was the 11th month).

I got an e-mail saying that they might not cover it since one of the battery connectors was smashed, the same one they told me to push in "forcefully." Several e-mails, with increasing anger, back and forth convinced them that it was their tech support that told me to mash in the battery as hard as I could.

When the manager sent back an e-mail complaining that they had to spend over $1,000 for parts to fix the chair, I basically lost it with them and reminded them that I had paid far more than that for a chair that was basically useless and that their contract with me gave me 12 months to force them to make it right...I really didn't care if they were losing money on this since the chair was a lemon from the get-go.

A week later the chair returned. Tim and I took it out for a long walk.  It worked and went much faster this time and was working very well. We decided to roll the dice and take it with us to Canada for a two week trip. I was knowing that I'd be doing a lot of pushing...in the mountains...if this happened again.

To make a long story short, the chair performed brilliantly with absolutely no problems. I just wish it had been that way from the beginning...it would have been nice not to push this chair to the heart of Europe and southern Florida.  

Now, finally, the chair is worth it.  If you do decide to buy a chair like this, make sure it really works as promised as soon as it's delivered...and hold the vendor's feet to the fire if there is anything at all you're not happy with.

Our most recent European traveling adventure to Germany and the Czech Republic was special enough that it is worthy of not just one, but two...YES TWO...Cerebral Palsy Stories.  The first Cerebral Palsy Story from our time in Europe was about the basic fundamentals of using an aisle chair while boarding and getting off an airplane.

The second Cerebral Palsy Story from our time in Europe comes courtesy of a new traveling power wheelchair we bought from a company called GEO Cruiser up north in San Jose, California.  When we were looking at the different models they offered, we opted to go with the elite model in the Geo Cruiser line of power wheelchairs for a cost of about $2,500.  Considering that there are only two models of the wheelchair offered, the choice of models wasn't very hard for us in terms of the number of models offered.  We just had to make what we felt was the best decision for us in terms of which model of the chair we thought would give us the best bang for our buck.

We also wanted to get me a new power wheelchair for traveling purposes so that I could have some independence while seeing the sights in Europe by driving myself around and not having to rely on my parents to push me around all the time to wherever we went.

There are a couple of different electric chairs to choose from. To their credit, when we called Geo Cruiser, they suggested we also look at their competitor's chair before buying. This was the EZ Cruiser wheelchair.

EZ Cruiser's warehouse is located in Van Nuys, California and Geo Cruiser is in San Jose. We were heading up to Northern California so we decided to visit both locations in person to test drive the chairs.

EZ Cruiser seems like a well-built chair and has a nice turning radius and a good warranty.
The problem with it is that the back is at a too-severe angle and it feels like I'm reclining.

Geo Cruiser is more comfortable to sit in but takes a little getting used to with it's wider turning radius and slower speed. The warranty is good but not as good as EZ Cruiser's.

The price for both chairs is almost the same and both weigh around 60 pounds, including lithium batteries. They both fold up to easily fit in a regular sized car trunk, although the Geo Cruiser folds up just a little smaller than the EZ Cruiser.

As I mentioned above, we chose to go with the elite model of the Geo Cruiser when purchasing a new traveling power wheelchair a few months before we left for Germany mainly because it's a more comfortable chair to sit in.  As with most of our other purchases, we had the wheelchair delivered to our house similar what one would have delivered to them from an Amazon.com purchase.

During the time after the new chair was delivered, my family and I took full advantage of the time we had left before our trip so that I could practice driving it around and get more comfortable with it.

Those weekly driving tests consisted of driving it to and from our backyard and back inside the house.  From what I can remember, the only negatives we discovered from these pre-traveling weekly driving tests was that the new chair didn't have quite as nice of turning radius for tight and sharp corners compared to my regular power wheelchair and that it wasn't as fast.  We even got in touch with the company again before we left to ask how we could adjust the speed and they walked us through the steps on how to make it go faster.

Fast forwarding to the week when we leave for our trip, I can already feel a difference while driving it around the airport before our first flight leaves in terms of feeling better about how to use it when navigating it around tricky turns and sharp corners, so I can't say that the weekly driving tests I did before we left didn't help because they did in terms of making me feel more confident and comfortable about my skill level when driving it.

What my family and I didn't find out until the trip was in full swing were are the cons of the wheelchair that weren't present before we left.  For instance, when I had my chair at its top speed at times, it would suddenly decide to start slowing down for whatever reason even though I hadn't turned it down to a slower speed in the first place.  When this happened, I kept having to remind my parents to slow down their walking pace just so I could keep up with them.  When that didn't work, I had to have my dad put the chair in manual mode and push it so we could get to where we were going faster.

Then there were times when some of the screws and bolts on the chair would come loose from going over the lovely cobblestone sidewalks and streets that Europe is famous for.  To manage this obstacle we ended having to go to a hardware store near our hotel as well as borrowing a wrench from the helpful staff at the hotel's front desk to tighten the loose screws and bolts.  This became a nightly ritual during our time there.  So much so that one night, the lady at the hotel's front desk already had the wrench in her hand when we returned from our sight seeing one night and said that we could give it back before we had to leave.  The good thing about that is we didn't have to hold on to it and give it back since we went to a nearby hardware store and got the necessary repair supplies.

One final downside that the chair presented during our trip was a problem with one of the chair's motors that was making it even more difficult to use because it went even slower during these times and it was also making an unpleasant grinding noise in the motor while driving it.  At this point, I was already having enough of a hard time trying to keep the chair on the right side of the sidewalk to avoid any oncoming pedestrians and bicycles that it was getting really frustrating for both my parents and myself that more often than not, we had to put the chair in manual to save us from even more headaches.

About the only silver lining we found for easier navigation of the chair for future trips came at the end when we discovered by accident a little trick where we would put the right motor on manual while driving the chair and somehow this seemed to improve the overall performance of the chair and it also seemed to go a little bit faster once we discovered this trick.  It's too bad that it took us until the trip was over to find this out for ourselves since it would have made things a lot easier for all of us in the beginning.

Since the chair is under warranty, we shipped it back to Geo Cruiser to repair the problems that we had with it. The company took about a week to make repairs and ship it back to us. We will see if the problems we encountered are fixed.

Tim Musick
Copyright 2016
All Rights Reserved.