Qantas 'denied elderly woman wheelchair'
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Qantas 'denied elderly woman wheelchair'
http://au.news.yahoo.com/060131/2/xrxo.html
A woman in her 70s just released from hospital after spinal surgery was told she could not use a Qantas wheelchair outside the terminal because of airline policy.
June Lewis, of Sydney, had been released from hospital for her grand-daughter's wedding in Melbourne the day before the incident at Melbourne Airport on Monday, January 23.
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Mrs Lewis, who was wearing a back brace, was forced to walk from a short term car space to the terminal, about 50 paces away.
Mrs Lewis suffers great pain walking short distances and took 10 minutes to walk to the terminal, her son Michael Lewis said.
News of the incident comes a day after retail giant Westfield made a $50,000 donation to the Muscular Dystrophy Association because a security guard at Melbourne's Fountain Gate Shopping Centre had prevented two men with the disease from using the centre's wheelchairs in its car park.
Tony and Ross Costa, both in their 40s, were forced to crawl about three metres from the front door to their sister's car.
Mr Lewis said his mother had been allowed to take a wheelchair to the car park when she arrived at Melbourne Airport, despite the policy, when he advised Qantas staff his mother was unable to walk.
"When they were leaving on Monday to go back to Sydney, I had my father and mum in the car, mum's walking frame and a suitcase.
"She'd been using a wheelchair in Melbourne but didn't have any space in the car and we didn't think we'd need it to get from the kerb into the airport, that Qantas would provide it.
"A Qantas guy said to them, 'We don't provide wheelchairs outside the front door of the terminal, but if she needs a wheelchair, if she's that sick, she should have her own wheelchair.
"My dad walked back to the car and said to me: 'I've got a right bastard here'.
"I intend to take this to the Equal Opportunity Commission", he said.
"This is unacceptable. You've got to help people get inside front doors. You can't just leave them stranded in the street and say, 'You're on your own'."
Qantas corporate communications manager Belinda Derome said workers would be encouraged to take a more flexible approach to the policy.
"For various reasons this policy was intended to be flexible ... ," she said.
"Clearly that hasn't happened so we will restate those guidelines to our workers to make sure the rules are now clear for our people."
June Lewis, of Sydney, had been released from hospital for her grand-daughter's wedding in Melbourne the day before the incident at Melbourne Airport on Monday, January 23.
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Mrs Lewis, who was wearing a back brace, was forced to walk from a short term car space to the terminal, about 50 paces away.
Mrs Lewis suffers great pain walking short distances and took 10 minutes to walk to the terminal, her son Michael Lewis said.
News of the incident comes a day after retail giant Westfield made a $50,000 donation to the Muscular Dystrophy Association because a security guard at Melbourne's Fountain Gate Shopping Centre had prevented two men with the disease from using the centre's wheelchairs in its car park.
Tony and Ross Costa, both in their 40s, were forced to crawl about three metres from the front door to their sister's car.
Mr Lewis said his mother had been allowed to take a wheelchair to the car park when she arrived at Melbourne Airport, despite the policy, when he advised Qantas staff his mother was unable to walk.
"When they were leaving on Monday to go back to Sydney, I had my father and mum in the car, mum's walking frame and a suitcase.
"She'd been using a wheelchair in Melbourne but didn't have any space in the car and we didn't think we'd need it to get from the kerb into the airport, that Qantas would provide it.
"A Qantas guy said to them, 'We don't provide wheelchairs outside the front door of the terminal, but if she needs a wheelchair, if she's that sick, she should have her own wheelchair.
"My dad walked back to the car and said to me: 'I've got a right bastard here'.
"I intend to take this to the Equal Opportunity Commission", he said.
"This is unacceptable. You've got to help people get inside front doors. You can't just leave them stranded in the street and say, 'You're on your own'."
Qantas corporate communications manager Belinda Derome said workers would be encouraged to take a more flexible approach to the policy.
"For various reasons this policy was intended to be flexible ... ," she said.
"Clearly that hasn't happened so we will restate those guidelines to our workers to make sure the rules are now clear for our people."
Not enough $$$ ...
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How long would it have taken for someone to say "not a problem, I'll even help you with it", and briskly walk the wheelchair to the car, wait for the person to get in and then help push it back to the door?
"Customer service"?
"Customer service"?
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thats the problem. a lot get dumped somewhere on the carpark and some others like the chair so they load them into the car. have to start taking credit card as security.
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This is Learned behavior, it comes directly from upper management. If the staff were treated more humanely then i am sure it would be passed on to the customers. Do you think for one moment that Qantas management would support the employee who allowed a wheel chair to be taken outside of the terminal and a accident took place.... they sack people for taking biscuits...
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Why didn't Mr Lewis drive his mother to the front of the terminal to drop off rather than park in the carpark. Surely a 3m walk to the front door would not have been as arduous as the 50 metre walk from the short term carpark.
I don't like anyone being discriminated against or taken advantage of but why is it that people don't also take responsibility for themselves as well. If it were my elderly Mum in a brace just checked out of hospital I would have called the airport/airline/carpark etc to find the info before I left to make sure that we knew what was ahead of us.
Complimentary wheelchairs for customers are used to assist them in their travel plans and unfortunately because of others mistreating the equipment everyone is forced to follow harsher rules. I've seen wheel chair pax miraculously stand up and walk, and then stick their luggage in the wheelchair and push it through the terminal.
I don't like anyone being discriminated against or taken advantage of but why is it that people don't also take responsibility for themselves as well. If it were my elderly Mum in a brace just checked out of hospital I would have called the airport/airline/carpark etc to find the info before I left to make sure that we knew what was ahead of us.
Complimentary wheelchairs for customers are used to assist them in their travel plans and unfortunately because of others mistreating the equipment everyone is forced to follow harsher rules. I've seen wheel chair pax miraculously stand up and walk, and then stick their luggage in the wheelchair and push it through the terminal.
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I agree completely newsensation.
Staff get treated with contempt by their management and they are simply treating others as they are treated themselves. Don't forget this guy was simply following procedures.
We are continually chastised if we are deviating from procedures so the fault lies squarely with the management who write these procedures.
Here is a link of the story of a QF engineer who was working as a volunteer bush fire fighter who recently had their pay docked.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...590479810.html
This sort of thing is a common occurance and it only gets labelled a "slip up" when it makes the paper and the spin doctors go into overdrive
Staff get treated with contempt by their management and they are simply treating others as they are treated themselves. Don't forget this guy was simply following procedures.
We are continually chastised if we are deviating from procedures so the fault lies squarely with the management who write these procedures.
Here is a link of the story of a QF engineer who was working as a volunteer bush fire fighter who recently had their pay docked.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...590479810.html
This sort of thing is a common occurance and it only gets labelled a "slip up" when it makes the paper and the spin doctors go into overdrive
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I refer my post on the sacked-for-knicking-oreos thread: the QF spokeswoman reckons the policy should have been applied with 'flexibility'. Well, like the previous poster, you go pedantic in one area, the staff (just doing their job) go pedantic in others - lest they get shafted.
GD has cut costs - one day he'll learn that the other contributor to bottom line is "revenue" and if you pi55 off those who provide said "revenue", then you're up it sans paddle.
Mind you, if SACL is anything to go by, many in upper echelons of aviation-related management in Sydney appear to be acting like unsavoury, money-grubbing sharks...
GD has cut costs - one day he'll learn that the other contributor to bottom line is "revenue" and if you pi55 off those who provide said "revenue", then you're up it sans paddle.
Mind you, if SACL is anything to go by, many in upper echelons of aviation-related management in Sydney appear to be acting like unsavoury, money-grubbing sharks...
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Originally Posted by Iguanahead
Why didn't Mr Lewis drive his mother to the front of the terminal to drop off rather than park in the carpark.
Originally Posted by Sykes
You've got to wonder what goes through some peoples minds when they look an invalid in the eye and say "You can't take this wheelchair. You have to walk!"
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You've all lost the plot. Common decency is something you either have or do not have. Blaming management for your own mindless behaviour is just a cop-out.
If you don't like the job or the company then do everyone a favour and buggar off and go work in a bank where that sort of attitude is expected.
If you don't like the job or the company then do everyone a favour and buggar off and go work in a bank where that sort of attitude is expected.
A similar thing happend with Westfield secuirty quite recently.
http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/...5E2862,00.html
http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/...5E2862,00.html
Nunc est bibendum
Messiah, F-class beat me to the punch but QF was VERY clear to all staff about breaching the cardinal rules. One of those rules is about adherance to company policy and procedures.
I love the job and the company (now in that order although it used to be the other way) and would once consider going out of my way to get the right outcome. However, these days we are constantly being reminded to adhere strictly to the letter of the rules unless safety indicates otherwise. Given the overt focus that this has received and some of the retribution inflicted when people do break the rules (even for what appear to be reasonable issues) then I can't blame people for going with the conservative stance.
I love the job and the company (now in that order although it used to be the other way) and would once consider going out of my way to get the right outcome. However, these days we are constantly being reminded to adhere strictly to the letter of the rules unless safety indicates otherwise. Given the overt focus that this has received and some of the retribution inflicted when people do break the rules (even for what appear to be reasonable issues) then I can't blame people for going with the conservative stance.
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Originally Posted by The Messiah
If you don't like the job or the company then do everyone a favour and buggar off and go work in a bank where that sort of attitude is expected.
Safety issues are different but letting granny use a wheelchair in the car park probably doesn't qualify as a critical flight safety issue. It might be simple manners but it also is incumbent upon the firm to allow staff to deviate from some policies if it helps the punter and builds a bit of goodwill.
They clearly don't want staff who can think for themselves; they'd rather pay peanuts and get chimps. It'll come back to haunt.
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All Qantas staff are beaten about the head to conform to company policy, and if a staff member acts in a manner that could be even perceived to be outside policy, then said staff member must be aware that they are sticking their neck out and in so doing it WILL be chopped off whether it is deserved or not. Adhering to the policy of not exposing ones neck is the first rule of survival in the airlines.
With respect to the survival rule above as the highest directive for staff in the airline environment, many airline employees exact their frustration at being forced by their employers to be powerless drones unwittingly so upon the flying public by exerting un-necessary power in customer dealings.
What I see all too often in the airlines is that these same people exert power over the people who are least likely to pose a threat, and believe it or not that includes disabled people.
I have been sickened by the discrimination that people with medical needs face when flying, and have been waiting to hear the time when a disabled person has had enough of airline miss-treatment to complain.
I have seen people with power chairs objectified in the case that their batteries might be dangerous - which they are not.
I have seen palliative people travelling to receive medical care who require Oxygen objectified and un-necessarily forced to take flights with carriers other than those they had booked and paid to fly with all because the check in staff hadn't read the companies manuals and were to scared of what they didn’t know.
I have seen lucid disabled people refused boarding because they don't have a carer because the way that their neck muscles caused them to look bad.
Many airline staff refer to disable PAX in two ways – CFW’s and WFW’s – can’t walk and won’t walk.
The truth is that how disabled people are treated by an airline, and every airline is guilty of this, depends upon the attitude and level of understanding that the airline staff have. If an airline treats it's staff poorly, and has policies that are not sympathetic to disabled peoples genuine needs, then it is true that that treatment flows on to the customers - it's unfortunate that that nastiness tends from what I have seen to flow on to the customers who are often most in need.
Airline staff forget that it is a far greater power to make somebody’s day by helping them along their way, than it is to wreck somebody’s day by being the officious monster that the airlines want us to be.
I am glad to see that these incidents have finally been highlighted as they are not uncommon, and would have loved to bring these issues to the media except for fear for my job.
**Denny Crane**
With respect to the survival rule above as the highest directive for staff in the airline environment, many airline employees exact their frustration at being forced by their employers to be powerless drones unwittingly so upon the flying public by exerting un-necessary power in customer dealings.
What I see all too often in the airlines is that these same people exert power over the people who are least likely to pose a threat, and believe it or not that includes disabled people.
I have been sickened by the discrimination that people with medical needs face when flying, and have been waiting to hear the time when a disabled person has had enough of airline miss-treatment to complain.
I have seen people with power chairs objectified in the case that their batteries might be dangerous - which they are not.
I have seen palliative people travelling to receive medical care who require Oxygen objectified and un-necessarily forced to take flights with carriers other than those they had booked and paid to fly with all because the check in staff hadn't read the companies manuals and were to scared of what they didn’t know.
I have seen lucid disabled people refused boarding because they don't have a carer because the way that their neck muscles caused them to look bad.
Many airline staff refer to disable PAX in two ways – CFW’s and WFW’s – can’t walk and won’t walk.
The truth is that how disabled people are treated by an airline, and every airline is guilty of this, depends upon the attitude and level of understanding that the airline staff have. If an airline treats it's staff poorly, and has policies that are not sympathetic to disabled peoples genuine needs, then it is true that that treatment flows on to the customers - it's unfortunate that that nastiness tends from what I have seen to flow on to the customers who are often most in need.
Airline staff forget that it is a far greater power to make somebody’s day by helping them along their way, than it is to wreck somebody’s day by being the officious monster that the airlines want us to be.
I am glad to see that these incidents have finally been highlighted as they are not uncommon, and would have loved to bring these issues to the media except for fear for my job.
**Denny Crane**
Last edited by Danny Crane; 31st Jan 2006 at 13:22.
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When my wife & daughters recently flew o/s with QANTAS, they had a short stopover in Sydney. We asked prior to checking-in in Melbourne if a toddler's stroller could be taken on board as cabin luggage. First we were told no, then yes, then no at the gate, but that courtesy strollers were available in Sydney and they would request one be waiting on arrival.
Of course it wasn't waiting at the gate, and my wife had to carry our baby, 2 cabin bags, and escort our 6yo daughter to the service desk only to then be told she couldn't take the stroller from the domestic terminal to international. Sort of defeated the whole purpose....
Well we're also not supposed to permit direct tracking for no valid reason, or assign non-standard levels unless REQUIRED, and if it wasn't for one solitary QANTAS staff member who went above & beyond, then I'd remember that every time a QANTAS aircraft requests such.
Of course it wasn't waiting at the gate, and my wife had to carry our baby, 2 cabin bags, and escort our 6yo daughter to the service desk only to then be told she couldn't take the stroller from the domestic terminal to international. Sort of defeated the whole purpose....
Well we're also not supposed to permit direct tracking for no valid reason, or assign non-standard levels unless REQUIRED, and if it wasn't for one solitary QANTAS staff member who went above & beyond, then I'd remember that every time a QANTAS aircraft requests such.
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I can't believe I am reading some of the posts here. Especially such lines as
How do you expect them to bring them back?
Qantas staff seem to forget the concept of service then blame management for thier inability to do the job (and I mean provide a service). If you take the job then take the responsibility.
I work in a service industry and have to bend over backwards sometimes to make sure the customer is happy. Thing is I see Qantas staff from both sides as the service I provide has them as a customer and believe me they expect more from me than they are willing to give in return.
a lot get dumped somewhere on the carpark
Qantas staff seem to forget the concept of service then blame management for thier inability to do the job (and I mean provide a service). If you take the job then take the responsibility.
I work in a service industry and have to bend over backwards sometimes to make sure the customer is happy. Thing is I see Qantas staff from both sides as the service I provide has them as a customer and believe me they expect more from me than they are willing to give in return.