Frankfurt Airport: Wheelchair forgotten in the USA
Sandra Olbrich is angry with Lufthansa. Her wheelchair was not loaded on a flight to Frankfurt. The handling of the case reveals several problems.
Frankfurt/Denver – Sandra Olbrich has now been back from the USA for almost three weeks – and the last bit of jetlag has since disappeared. What remains, however, is anger and a lack of understanding about what happened to her after the return flight Lufthansa happened, as you remarked on the phone call. The 53-year-old journalist and presenter landed at around 12 noon on August 28 Airport Frankfurt and had to find out there: Her wheelchair had stopped in Denver.
Of course, Olbrich, who has a walking disability, had imagined her return from the holiday tour with her family to be very different. But she wasn’t surprised at the looming misery. “The rule is that barrier-free travel doesn’t go smoothly,” she says, who often hears similar stories from disabled people in their private and professional lives. This not only applies to Lufthansa or air traffic, but also, for example, to the railways.
Frankfurt Airport: Wheelchair user calls Lufthansa communication “unreasonable”
But now it is Frankfurt-based Lufthansa that the wheelchair user is disappointed with. Deprived of the essential tool, Olbrich was stuck in her apartment in Karlsruhe for two days, as she described to thousands of interested people on Twitter. Would she get the expensive custom made back? If yes, do you want? And how? Nobody knew. In vain she called the airline’s hotline, whose communication the moderator calls an “imposition”.
The problems had already started when the plane touched down in Frankfurt. “I sat in the open plane door for 45 minutes until it became clear that the wheelchair was still in Denver,” says Olbrich. “I felt absolutely humiliated and powerless.” Lufthansa violates European law, she says. Specifically: against EU Regulation 1107 of 2006this is intended to ensure that people with restricted mobility get help when traveling by air and are not discriminated against.
Frankfurt Airport: Disgruntled customer sees pent-up demand at Lufthansa
Of course, Lufthansa is also aware of the EU regulation. When asked who is responsible for the needs of disabled passengers within the company, Germany’s largest airline writes that “internal processes are used to ensure compliance and implementation”. Depending on the topic, “different departments are affected with the implementation” of the guidelines. Raising awareness of the need for disabled passengers is “fixed training for our release”.
Sandra Olbrich noticed little of these promises. She got the impression that at Lufthansa it is not clear what it means for a person who is dependent on a wheelchair to lose it – even if it is only for a few days. Your wheelchair is perfectly adapted to you and is worth thousands of euros. Getting him was expensive and took an eternity, says the 53-year-old. “A loss would be a disaster.” Her wheelchair is practically irreplaceable.
After losing a wheelchair at Lufthansa: Woman sent to lost and found office in Frankfurt
For Olbrich, the wheelchair means freedom. Understanding this is important in order to understand why Olbrich cannot dismiss the loss as an unfortunate mistake due to the aftermath of Corona. If you take away her wheelchair, you take away her freedom. The fact that after her botched arrival in Frankfurt she had to stand in line for hours in a “lousy” replacement wheelchair at the lost and found office, as if only a suitcase with socks and towels had been lost, seems like a mockery.
company | Lufthansa group |
Seat | Head office: Cologne, operational business: Frankfurt |
Sales volume | 16.811 million in 2021 |
workforce | 105,290 employees |
Source: Lufthansa Group |
According to Lufthansa, wheelchairs are treated as so-called “priority baggage, which is loaded and unloaded with priority”. The mobility aids are not allowed to fly in the cabin. They are “too big and too heavy”, some are not foldable, others would exceed the weight limits. There is therefore “no adequate storage space” in the interior of the plane, it says on request. Olbrich’s wheelchair should have ended up in the hold with the suitcases and bags.
Criticism of Lufthansa: “A wheelchair is not a simple piece of luggage”
How it happened that the wheelchair did not even get on board in Denver is still unclear to this day. Lufthansa writes on request, for data protection reasons, one cannot comment specifically on the case of Sandra Olbrich. On the public platform Twitter, the disability activist herself was referred to the luggage team with her criticism. “A wheelchair is not just a piece of luggage, but a vital aid,” she clarifies.
Not an isolated case despite data gaps
On her four-week trip through the American desert, Sandra Olbrich was not the only one who noticed that the USA is a good deal further than Germany when it comes to accessibility – which worked without any problems with a wheelchair. Since late 2018, airlines in the United States have been required to compromise or collect data from wheelchairs. how to die Washington Post reportedSince then, more than 15,400 cases have found their way into the statistics.
According to the report, nearly 1.5 percent of all mobility devices transported as cargo on American airlines were lost or damaged. The crisis in the air travel industry caused by the corona pandemic is likely to have depressed these numbers considerably. 2019 alone came loudly Washington Post namely around 10,500 cases together – that made about 29 o’clock this year.
In Germany, those affected have to report the cases in which the EU regulation 1107 is suspected to have been violated to the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt. Between 2019 and 2021, it received 25 complaints from passengers with reduced mobility. There is no breakdown by wheelchair loss or damage. The discrepancy between passenger numbers and complaints is striking, admits a spokeswoman for the authorities. When it comes to wheelchairs, she also refers to the numbers of lost luggage. (ag)
When asked how one feels about this criticism, Lufthansa refers to the “priority baggage” status of wheelchairs and a service – generally known in the flight business as “delivery at aircraft”: Anyone who requests this in advance can use the wheelchair up to drive through the aircraft door and get it back there after the trip. In Olbrich’s case, however, the wheelchair disappeared after she handed it in when boarding – even though she asked twice on the plane whether it had been loaded, she says.
Lufthansa at Frankfurt Airport: “I would have expected someone to get behind it straight away”
In the end, the angry customer had no choice but to report the loss – and wait. The fact that she still had to be told at the counter that prioritized delivery was not possible because all logistics appointments were fully booked fits the picture. “I would have expected someone from Lufthansa to come straight away, apologize and get behind the matter,” says Olbrich. She is disappointed that she did not even get a contact person at Lufthansa.
“Basically”, passengers would be “proactively informed when their delayed luggage will be delivered,” writes Lufthansa when asked who disabled customers can turn to in urgent cases. You can also view the search status online or call the Baggage call center. You are responsible for damage to the wheelchairs, and you also pay for a rental wheelchair as a bridging measure. If a wheelchair is completely lost, the current value will be reimbursed.
From Frankfurt to Karlsruhe: Lost wheelchair arrives after two days
After two days, on August 30 at 8:16 p.m., it was done. A delivery service had brought the lost wheelchair from Frankfurt to Karlsruhe. To date, Sandra Olbrich has not received an official apology from Lufthansa – apart from a Twitter comment and the kind words of the crew. She has now officially filed a complaint and says: “It is important to me that the case is documented and that Lufthansa changes its processes so that something like this does not happen again.” (Alexander Gottschalk)