As soon as Emily Ladau was told her wheelchair wasn’t on the jet bridge after her flight, she knew the aviation system was failing her as a disabled traveler, again.
Ladau explained that her wheelchair was damaged after arriving at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on a Delta Air Lines flight. The feeling of loss and frustration was all too familiar, she said.
"When we landed, a complaint resolution officer came to meet me before I got off of the aircraft and said to me that there’s been an incident – that’s the direct word, incident – that they wouldn’t be bringing my wheelchair to me and that we would have to go find it at baggage claim," Ladau told USA TODAY in an interview. "When I hear that a 450-pound wheelchair fell, I don’t think the result is good."
Her suspicion proved right, and Ladau said it was the third time an airline had significantly damaged her mobility device, not to mention other incidents of damage while traveling.
"The back was completely smashed in, there were pieces that had been broken off the back, there were pieces broken on all sides of the chair," Ladau said. "I knew immediately that it was unusable and unfixable."
