No Care in the Air? Disabled airline traveler experience exposes lack of uniform training standards

How is this allowed to happen? That’s just one of the questions you asked us, following our investigation into the struggles the disabled face during air travel.

The man in this video, who’s paralyzed from the chest down, recorded his experience during a recent flight into Fort Myers, calling it, “another disabled flying nightmare.” He says he needs your help to make flying safer and more dignified for everyone.

As James Glasbergen arrives at Southwest Florida International Airport for his trip home to Toronto from his Cape Coral vacation home, he hopes his boarding goes smoothly.

“Whenever I fly, the first thing I say in the morning to myself, I can’t wait until this day is over,” says Glasbergen.

He’s quadriplegic and needs a lot of help getting in and out of those airline seats. His United Airlines flight to Fort Myers in February didn’t go so well.

Airline worker: “Hey Maria, call the medic because I am not going to deal with the wheelchair.”

That worker who left the plane, is employed by G2 Secure Staff, a third-party contractor hired by United to handle customer services, including the wheelchair attendants. The ones who stayed, struggled to get Glasbergen off the plane and on his way.

Airline worker: “This is a disaster!”

In response to this video, G2 Secure Staff emailed us a statement, saying in part, “we were pleased to hear the passenger stating throughout the process that he was comfortable.”

Glasbergen didn’t say he was comfortable.

“It’s shocking. I don’t even know what to say,” says Glasbergen. “I was almost falling out of the seat. I was laying down flat on the seat, it was very uncomfortable.”

I brought the video to physical therapist Jim Creus with Lee Health and asked that he weigh in on what happened.

“It’s still shocking to see it a little bit,” says Creus. “But I’m not surprised.”

He says it can be challenging to move someone with a severe disability and one mistake could be devastating.

“Even if someone is kind of held in the wrong way to an arm or limb, or if they incur some sort of bruising or things like that, that can set somebody back,” explains Creus. “It’s very difficult. If you’re not doing it all the time. It’s easy for me to say because we’re doing it, you know, 40 hours a week.”

“The individuals boarding this person made it far more difficult than it should have been,” says independent aviation safety consultant Steve Cowell.

Cowell points out that Glasbergen is placed in a seat with a fixed armrest. That forces workers to hoist him over the armrest rather than slide him from one seat to another.

“Number one, it’s uncomfortable for the passenger,” says Cowell. “Number two… it could pose a safety hazard should something happen to that flight.”

He says a major issue is a lack of industry-wide training standards for people who serve the disabled. The Air Carriers Access Act, ACAA, which spells out the rights of the disabled on aircraft, is too vague.

“There’s no coordination between the agencies of the government and the airlines,” adds Cowell. “And the government does not want to write specific training standards because of liability, the government could be held liable. And that’s one of the greatest fears of the federal government in any regulation that they put forth.”

United Airlines contractor G2 Secure Staff would not reveal any details about its training, claiming it’s “proprietary and confidential.”

“It’s not proprietary,” says Cowell. “The reason why they don’t want you to know, is because they don’t want to be embarrassed, they don’t want the public at large to be outraged at the real lack of training.”

“That is a big concern,” states investigator Barbara Page, with the non-profit Disability Rights Florida. “If the airlines are not all training employees in the same manner, and that there’s not a standard protocol for training on how to assist passengers, then how would someone know how to expect and even on the best day under the best circumstances?”

I sent Glasbergen’s video to the United States Department of Transportation and asked if his experience meets ACAA standards. They won’t comment on, “the merits of matters that are or could be brought before the Department for Investigation.”

But I did discover, the DOT fined United Airlines 2 million dollars for ACAA violations in 2016, including failing in “providing passengers with a disability with enplaning and deplaning assistance.”

In its report, the DOT states it investigated, “due to a significant increase in the number of disability-related complaints the carrier received directly from consumers.”

Glasenberg’s flight home on another airline — Air Canada — was better.
He says the wheelchair attendants with a different contractor — not G2 — were prepared.

I reached out to G2 Secure Staff to follow up on its response about Glasbergen being comfortable during his transfer and the company’s training. They responded with an email saying they will review and get back to me.

I also reached out to United to find out why Glasbergen was in a fixed seat. No response.

That’s, in part, why Glasbergen says he continues to fight for consistent care in the air, even if that means recording and posting all of his transfers for everyone to see.

This story is not just about Glasbergen. There are more than 3 million people in the US who are wheelchair-bound. And one out of seven people struggle with their mobility. That’s more than 47 million people and that number is expected to rise.

If you have something you’d like me to investigate, email me at celine.mcarthur@winknews.com

---

Read the “No Care in the Air?” series:

• Part 1: Airline traveler who is quadriplegic shares struggle, demands change
• Part 3: DOT to host virtual public hearing to discuss wheelchair traveler troubles