Category: Travel and Tourism
hi guys
I've had to travel alone quite a lot through airports on my own in the last 3 years or so. In my experience the guiding you get in an airport feels almost like they've never encountered a person before. More often than not when I've gotten of connecting flights and have to wait for some hours some one will come and say: Ok I'm going to guide you to the gate and you can just sit there the 4 hours until your flight is boarding. Usually it works to tell them that I'm maybe kind of hungry or in general want to spend my time rather at an airport bar than the gate.
So I'm just curious on what your experience with traveling alone through airports or other similar trans port hubs.
It's not you, that's generally what I've experienced too. They won't know what you want or need unless you tell them and they're supposed to make sure you get where you need to if you need the help. Some are nicer than others. I haven't had any nasty experiences at airports but I have with AmTrak.
I don't think the problem is the ground service people that usually are supposed to help you but rather the fact that they are not really supposed to do anything except for guiding you to and from the plane. Usually of course it works to explain to them that you're not a luggage item but a person, well maybe in some more polite words and they will do there best to do what you want.
So I think that what needs to be considered is the level of service, that is airports need to be aware of the needs of people that for some reason or another cannot go around it alone.
I have some times gotten the answer if I want to go some where other than the gate: Sorry we've just got some other passengers that we need to help that we can't do this for you. And of course you can't say anything to that.
I've had varying mileage on this one. Usually I don't ask for much, so that's easy, but I've been refused once when I said I wanted to get food before a flight, while being helped out twice. More often than not, I try and time my arrival so that I get through the gate and hang around just waiting for the plane as little as possible. With connections, it's anyone's guess, and I've had some long downtimes, but I've learned to accept it as part of travel. Time won't pass any faster in a bar than at the gate, and I always bring a laptop, music device or even a portable gaming system if I'm really that worried about time I can't really be spending elsewhere. What I usually do is ask if there's anywhere that sells food between, say, security checkpoint and gate, that way it's not horribly out of someone's way, and then I'll make a judgment call on whether to pursue it after the fact. I'm low-maintenance when I travel, but not everyone is.
I usually try to gage the person who is helping me, and the amount of time I have. If the person assisting me is a jerk, or speaks almost no English so is hard to communicate with, I'll just say screw getting food and go to my gate. If they're relatively nice and easy to communicate with, I politely tell them I'd like to run through one of the restaurants and grab some food to take to the gate. I've never had anyone tell me no when I've done that, so I guess I've asked the right people.
Lol I somehow seem to manage to get the people that speak very little English, and so I've had some frustrating experiences with this. The last time I flew (earlier this year), I had a transfer at BWI that was initially only supposed to be a stop without changing planes. They insisted I use a wheelchair, and though I usually let them know I can walk, neither person seemed to be able to understand me, so I just got in the chair to avoid complication. I had about 10 minutes to make it from my current plane to the one I needed to be on, and the person pushing the chair was literally going at a snail's pace. The second gate was pretty far from the first, and I knew we could have gotten there much faster if I were walking. But she couldn't understand me, and I couldn't understand her. Luckily, even though we were close to 10 minutes late, they held the plane.
If you see another business traveler at the gate, offer to buy them a beer in exchange for taking you to a bar. They have to get on the same flight you do, so you can make that work. And yeah, time definitely passes more quickly when sipping the suds or popping the shots.
I only ran into trouble on that one when it was a rather uptight individual that loudly pronounced, "I don't drink beer." Other than that you can always find someone.
But another thing to be concerned about is getting stranded. I've had this happen, and fortunately me being a bit on the paranoid side to begin with I always ask which direction we're headed, how far it is, etc. So, when they left me, I simply took off in the relevant direction and asked a couple people along the way if they were headed to that gate. This was mid 2000s before I had a cell phone. Still would do it that way, probably.
If you want them to walk faster, just speed up so they notice you aren't just tagging along, and they will also. It kind of relieves them anyway since helping us is usually a second or third task on their list and they are often being interrupted along the way.
Also I found it helpful to have a hardcopy Braille version of my flight numbers and itinerary even if I did have it in a PDA or something, just because it's quicker to look at a sheet of paper. Of course it won't be up to date if you have to change flights but for most things you can be more specific than your assistant about where things are likely to be. It's just human nature that most people are at ease with someone who knows what they're doing. And you've seen it: that harried traveler at the gate with what sounds like a mess of tickets, you've heard the shuffling of papers, sighing, and carrying on, the ticket agents can't make heads or tails out of what this person needs. Compare that to someone who comes up and they have all their stuff together, even if it's a misesed flight situation, they usually get what they want. Same goes for us when it comes to assistance, depending on how strong someone's prejudice is against us as intelligent sentient beings. But most, preconceived ideas or not, will by nature go along with you if you know what it is you're doing and where you need to be.
The biggest problem I found usually comes from those who insist on a wheelchair, and I was even refused assistance once because I didn't go for a ride.
the wheel chair thing is just so classic. I've never experienced that one my self though I've heard of a number of people who have. And talk about security checks. I was traveling with a friend once who for medical reasons was not allowed through the security gate. He had a card and showed it to them and then had to do 5 minutes of convincing that it was him and not me who wasn't allowed through. And ooh the hug they give you when they steer you through the gate to make absolutely sure you will not bump into anything. It's just amazing.
I've encountered the frustrations that others have on here when travelling alone, particularly by air. I was once even told that if I went to a bar, they couldn't guarantee that someone would come back and take me to the gate as I would effectively have missed my slot. They didn't come back so I just asked a fellow patron of the bar if they could point me in the right direction.
I also almost missed a connecting flight in the US once because my guide was more interested in touching up his female co-workers as they passed by. They didn't seem to mind to be fair to him, I just wish he'd done it when he wasn't supposed to be taking me to the flight. My luggage didn't make it on because of it.
There was an interesting article about this in a back issue of Access World which is probably still on the aFB website. The guy who wrote it was obviously happy to wander round strange airports and just ask for help when needed. Obviously that won't be to everyone's taste, but it had some interesting tips in it such as Wikipedia pages on airports often describing how the gates are numbered and laid out..
I have mix experience with this. Depends on the airlines, sometime, they do hier what they call general assistant, and that general assistant usually share around different airlines. If that is the case, usually they run on a very tight schedule, where they might going to take you to point A to point B, then they go to Point C and so on. This is true in Melbourne Air Port in Australia.
As far as food stops and things like that goes, it depends on your asisstant. I like what sister Dawn suggest, start to talk to them, if they somewhat chatty, then, you can throw in things like, oh, i wonder how far is the gate, is there any landmark e.g. toilets, food place that we'll come across before the gate or near to the gate. Often they will guide me thru places like that, but, then, i suppose, we also need to acknowledge that that is not necesarry their responsibilities.
Their job is pretty much guide you thru from the check in counter to the gate, then the gate keeper will take you on board, and that is where it start and end. Anything in between, is really, depends on individual request and depends on how busy those staffs are or how much they can accomadate.
I've had some mixed experiences. In most of the airports in the UK the staff have been really helpful and if I've asked to be shown where something is they will. The problem has come when I've been in Europe and experienced a language barrier. I had a 5 minute argument with an Italian guy who could barely speak any English but insisted I needed to use a wheelchair. I won't back down, perhaps maybe I should but it really frustrated me at the time. In Venice the assistance to get to the plane however was really good, the same as in Germany. So I think it really does depend on who happens to be helping you on the day.