I flew to New York last Thursday on Jet Blue for business meetings.
I saw something that in over 40 years of air travel that I have never seen before anywhere. Ten per cent of the passengers flying that day required wheelchair assistance at SDQ and again at JFK......yep 18 passengers in wheel chairs all lined getting preferencial service. Quite a sight and I should have snapped it but out of respect for genuine disabled passengers though best not.
At both departure and arrival there were extended delays to access and egress the aircraft and there was a shortage of ground staff to deal with this number.
What did irk was that some of the disabled passengers had reason to vacate their wheelchairs during the wait to board.
I think wheelchair use at SDQ is grossly abused....and perhaps at other DR airports too. Are you charged for the service...or should you be...it all goes to the airport service charge charged to carriers otherwise.
To make the departure more eventful two other incidents occurred. A Dominican stowed his duty free in the overhead bin but it fell out prior to take off and cut a passengers head and that person had to be hospitalized delaying departure (BA and Iberia do not permit storage of bottles in overhead bins for this reason). And then on opening the cargo hold door on the arriving Condor fight, a dog jumped out and had to be chased around the airport.
All in a few hours at SDQ......
I saw something that in over 40 years of air travel that I have never seen before anywhere. Ten per cent of the passengers flying that day required wheelchair assistance at SDQ and again at JFK......yep 18 passengers in wheel chairs all lined getting preferencial service. Quite a sight and I should have snapped it but out of respect for genuine disabled passengers though best not.
At both departure and arrival there were extended delays to access and egress the aircraft and there was a shortage of ground staff to deal with this number.
What did irk was that some of the disabled passengers had reason to vacate their wheelchairs during the wait to board.
I think wheelchair use at SDQ is grossly abused....and perhaps at other DR airports too. Are you charged for the service...or should you be...it all goes to the airport service charge charged to carriers otherwise.
To make the departure more eventful two other incidents occurred. A Dominican stowed his duty free in the overhead bin but it fell out prior to take off and cut a passengers head and that person had to be hospitalized delaying departure (BA and Iberia do not permit storage of bottles in overhead bins for this reason). And then on opening the cargo hold door on the arriving Condor fight, a dog jumped out and had to be chased around the airport.
All in a few hours at SDQ......