11Wednesday 3 September 2008 | The Scotsman Special report | BUSINESS CLASS
Carriers
wake up to
the needs
of disabled
T
RAVELLING is often a serious
problem for business people
with disabilities. If you have im-
paired sight or hearing, or wear
a prosthetic limb or use a wheelchair,
you will find life much more difficult
thansomeonewhoisnotdisabled.
Some businessmen such as Rangers
chairmanSirDavidMurray,wholosthis
legs in a car crash in his twenties, go on
toenjoyaglitteringcareer,butthereare
many, many more stories of people put
offalifeinbusinessbecauseoftheirdis-
ability.Manyofthemcitethedifficulties
intravellingasamajorbartoabusiness
career.
Onemanwhounderstandsthosefeel-
ings is Fraser Bathgate of Edinburgh,
who has been in a wheelchair for more
than20yearsasaresultofaspinalinjury
he sustained while preparing to climb
Mount Everest. Bathgate took up scuba
diving and went on to become the
world's first paraplegic diving instruc-
tor,andisnowthevice-presidentanddi-
rector of training of the International
AssociationofHandicappedDivers.
Hetravels70,000milesayearasoneof
the world's leading consultants on ac-
cessforthedisabled.
"OnseveraloccasionsIhavebeenvery
close to not being able to do my job or
make a trip simply because the travel
company involved just did not want to
cater for a person in a wheelchair," he
says.
Bathgate knows of people with false
limbs who have been forced to take
them off in public before boarding, of
deaf passengers not being informed of
public address system announcements
and missing flights as a result. One
friend was recently forced to `swipe' his
fingerprints at an airport terminal � he
has prosthetic hands, but the regula-
tions didn't allow him through unless
his`fingerprints'weretaken.
"RecentlyatanairportintheUKIwas
told by the check-in staff that I would
have to get out of my own specially-
adapted wheelchair and into one of
theirstandardchairs.Itwasoutrageous,
completenonsense,"hesays."Ihavealso
Some `long overdue' European Union
regulations will force companies to get
their act together, writes MartinHannan
"My chair
has been
damaged in
the hold of
an aircraft
on several
occasions"
Airlines will no
longer be able to
refuse to carry
guide dogs in the
cabin alongside
their owners
Picture: PA
experienced my chair being damaged
in the hold of an aircraft on several
occasions.
"I am very lucky in that I have got to
know the guys at Edinburgh airport
over the years and they're very good. I
wish I could say the same about other
airports � there's always those promises
about more handlers being made avail-
ablebutitneverhappens.
"Thetheoryisthatyouget
loaded first so that people
are not crawling all over
you, and you are not made a
spectacle of, and you get off
lastforthesamereason.
"You usually find that
there are handlers available
when you reach your
destination, but several
times I have sat on a plane
withaveryangrycrewwaitingformeto
be disembarked because by law the
captain cannot leave the aircraft while
there'sstillapassengeronboard."
Bathgate was particularly angered
that the original 1995 Disability Dis-
crimination Act exempted many kinds
of transport from the rules, and even
whentheActwasupdatedbytheLabour
Government in 2005, aircraft and ship-
ping were given blanket exemptions,
while rail vehicles do not need to com-
plywiththerulesuntil2020.
"There are some airlines which I will
do anything to avoid," said Bathgate.
"One particular Irish-based airline is
notorious for the way it views disabled
passengers. Even if you have called
ahead and made all the arrangements
they will sometimes not have the han-
dlers available and the plane just goes
offwithoutyou."
Bathgate singles out BMI as the best
Britishaircarrierhehasflownwith,and
past experience with Dutch airline KLM
also impressed him. KLM
is probably ahead of the
game because it acted
before the European Union
regulations which have just
come into force, and which
Bathgatewelcomesas"long
overdue".
According to the Euro-
pean Disability Forum, the
new rules give the disabled and the el-
derlyaccesstoairtransportcomparable
to that enjoyed by all other passengers
flying to or from, or passing in transit
though,airportsintheEuropeanUnion,
with no discrimination and at no addi-
tionalcosttothepassenger.
Airlines will no longer be able to
refuse to carry guide dogs in the cabin
with their owners, while disabled pas-
sengers will get a seamless service from
check-intothedeparturegate,aswellas
adesignatedpointofarrival.
Employees dealing with passengers
will have to undertake disability aware-
ness training, and people will be
entitled to compensation if wheel-
chairsorotherequipmentaredamaged
intransit.
It's the sort of service KLM already of-
fers.AsaKLMspokeswomanexplained:
"KLM is committed to offering a
comfortable and reliable service for all
passengers including those with
disabilities or who require special
assistance in accordance with EU
regulations.
"KLM provides a dedicated free-of-
charge phone service for those passen-
gerswhorequireassistedservices�KLM
Cares � to ensure that any requests are
fulfilled.
"We also offer special assistance
passengers access to all KLM lounges at
airports which have specially equipped
facilities for those with specific require-
ments."
Yannis Vardakastanis, president of
the European Disability Forum, says:
"Untilnowwehavefaceddifferentkinds
of humiliating barriers and uncertain-
tiesintravel,suchastherequirementfor
a medical certificate for travelling, the
denial of travel because we were
travellingasusualaloneorwithaguide
dog, limitation of the number of
disabledpersonsonboardandsoon.
"Thisnewregulationisabridgefor50
million citizens of Europe and their
families, who have been limited in their
choices of movement, to the dynamic,
mobileworldwelivein."

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