Using trains or planes can be fraught with difficulty and danger for disabled people, from being forgotten about at stations to being unable to use the toilet on long flights
Sophie Morgan is fed up. The TV presenter, best known for her appearances on Loose Women and presenting the Paralympics, travels all the time for work – she films all over the world – and she knows what she is doing. But, because she is a wheelchair user, “every single flight is a risk”, she says.
For disabled people such as Morgan and me, air travel is perhaps uniquely stressful. There are so many things that can go wrong, alongside a shocking lack of dignity. Will they allow our wheelchair through security, or will we be forced on to airport chairs that we can’t use independently? Will the wheelchair be left behind at the gate, leaving us stranded? Will it be broken en route, ruining a work trip or a holiday? Will assistance come before boarding closes? Will we be hurt as we are manhandled on to the plane?
