For three months she is in force, the new EU regulation on barrier-free air travel. The long-awaited regulation requires airlines among others to provide assistance to passengers when necessary, so that they can reach the on-board toilets and use. Theoretically it should be now possible for passengers with reduced mobility, to be able to reach the toilet on a European flight. I am in a wheelchair on the way and so I looked forward to a flight where I would use a toilet for the first time in the European airspace. : Self portrait in a plane bathroom in a long-haul. I should look at the following video “Duck ring on onboard toilet in a wheelchair” who wants to know how to get get without using his feet. But it was different. On my flight from Hamburg to Paris I was disabused: the round not on the return journey the pilots of Air France was fitted so that I could use a toilet.
It is literally in the regulation: “If necessary, help to get to the toilets.” Exactly for this help, I asked the stewardess after I felt the urgent desire to go to a toilet. The flight attendant gave me to understand that you unfortunately could not help me but soon. Also an steward unclaimed to could not help. An on-board wheelchair, can be used to synchronize the transfer between the seat and the toilet would have realized was not available on board and wanted to the toilet, could or you could not wear me. This would have been admittedly not my wishful thinking, yet it is willing to much when the bladder presses.
But you didn’t help me. So I remained quiet on my seat and yearned towards the next toilet at the Paris Airport. The return journey was then similarly: after more than three hours, which I had sitting about an hour due to a delay on the plane, I was looking for the first time again a toilet. Air France was not so equipped also on the return flight, the statutory required assistance to give. I had only made this time and hours before drinking anything. I wanted to not relive a same situation as on the outbound flight. : Supposedly a barrier-free toilet at Air France, but no on-board wheelchair, to also be able to use it. Just the next day, I filed a written complaint. In a response promptly carried out Air France expressed its regret about the “inconvenience” while to, was aware of any breach of duty. My note that it would have been no on-board wheelchair available, was acknowledged with the following words: “it is in it (in the EU Regulation) not set that must be accompanied by an on-board wheelchair on a medium-haul flights”. Now the complaint to the Federal Aviation Authority is filed, and only hope that many people show their displeasure about the unacceptable conditions of accessibility in European aviation. Because, as it sounds from the House of the Minister of transport, once a critical mass of complaints will be submitted, will change something in the long term. Until then they may be console as a passenger so that also a leading employee of the Minister of transport, who wanted to be explicitly not named, sometimes more frequently had to wait four hours until they could use a toilet on the plane. In this sense: Complain for a barrier-free air traffic and for access to the Kanaka Rao about the clouds!