Awful experience with assistance staff at Gatwick

[married2mm]

Originally Posted by Johnsonsontour

Our British Disabled Assistance could certainly learn a thing or two from the great assistance we have had with our DD the other side of the pond in Florida!

See more...

Absolutely.

Op-as stated you really do need to file an official complaint; the situation you described is absolutely deplorable. It's humiliating and degrading to treat anyone in such a manner.

And yes, sadly we have had a similarly traumatic experience-in our case at Manchester airport in our return from holiday.
We would not even go near Manchester airport for a few years:angry:

In our case; the airline took more responsibility than the company who run the 'assistance' staff.

[thefourDs]

I hope you have now complained, that's truly disgusting!

[lepres]

It really shouldn't be a problem when a service is booked.
I'm doing a European flight from Heathrow this evening. Assistance booked with BA from check-in, will let you know in a couple of days how I get on.

[Leec]

Hi guys,
Just to give you an update we eventually heard back from Thomson after it being passed to head office and us having to email them over 36 times requesting a response!
Their after service has been absolutely disgusting and virtually zero!
In the end the head of customer service said they are not prepared to apologise or disclose any information regarding their investigation (if there's been one!)
They'd offered £200 as a gesture of goodwill. Which I've told them what to do.
The least they can do is apologise and give us some feedback.
I've now passed my complaint on to 'Reduced Mobility Rights' who are helping investigate what happened and hopefully get some sort of response.

Lee

[lepres]

Hi all, sorry for delay.
Arrived at Heathrow Terminal 3. BA flight and they have their own Special Needs check in area. After checking in and waiting, seated for a short while along came a wheelchair. It took myself and husband to the main Special needs area, again seated and waited about 10-15 minutes. My turn again, now to go through Passport control and security, straight through no problems onto next waiting area which is located to the side of Duty/Tax free shopping. (Just had to buy my favourite perfume, counter was right by the door). Again only waited long enough to buy perfume and husbands quick trip to WH Smiths for a couple of meal deals. Into electric buggy to Gate. Again waited a short while before being able to board one of the first. Only problem I had, my walker which folds down and usually fits in an overhead locker was taken from me at the gate as it was a full flight to be returned to plane door - unfortunately it wasn't, but there were 2 wheelchairs waiting so all was ok and my Walker did come through with the luggage.
Will update you all on our return flight help.

[scottish mama]

Sorry to hear you had that awful experience. We came back through Gatwick yesterday and had great service from young lady called Barbara (apart from my wheelchair not being brought up to door despite great big orange tag on it, oh and then getting stuck in a buggy traffic jam when a cleaner locked himself in and exit area)

Same couldn't be said when we were going out through Heathrow T3. It was chaos in the waiting area, couldn't understand what the lady taking me was saying, another large family tagged on to us which meant my family got separated from me and she got very impatient at me. Left me waiting after getting through security. Dumped me at larger SA waiting area without giving us any information.
We then got a buggy along to our gate, and AA staff were even worse. One of their staff was checking names early on and i mentioned I had SA booked as I now had no wheelchair as had arrived on buggy (mine had been booked through from NCL- Orlando). She noted this down, then just before they got everyone to board she called me up to the desk to board early, as usually happens. However, when I spoke to the woman at the desk she was completely rude and told us to sit down as it was only pre boarding folk they were letting on. I told her I had SA, and she again told me to sit down in a very disdainful manner, then actually turned away from me and proceeded to ignore me. When i told her again I had SA she said I had to speak to her colleague, who I pointed out to her was the person who had told me to come up to the desk in the first place. She then tried to tell me they don't do SA any more despite another woman sitting in a wheelchair behind her. I had had enough of her rudeness so I walked down to the plane instead of waiting for the wheelchair she eventually told me I could wait on being brought to the gate for me. By this point I was almost in tears and just wanted to get away from her and onto the plane, as I need to board early as it takes me a while to get sorted into my seat.

OMG, am so sorry about that! had forgotten how upsetting it had been, and was cross at myself at time for not responding more effectively to her, but I was so shocked at her attitude and had been travelling since 3.30am. Am definitely going to email AA about it, as she was worse than the LHR staff

[scottish mama]

Can I just add that this is the worst experience we've had in 7 years of using SA and it is not normally like this, in case anyone is considering using it and is now reconsidering!

Use it, as it's so helpful to many folk with all sorts of issues.

[Saratoska]

We flew with thomson out of Glasgow and have to say they were brilliant

Wheelchair ended up on carousel so lengthy wait for it to get brought to the plane door but the captain had said had said not to do this so

We have flown now 15 times with thomson and apart from them being unsure how to fit the cruelling harness sometimes they have been really wonderful crew