Paris airport wheelchair service
Oct 20th, 2012, 01:18 PM
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Paris airport wheelchair service
Paris airport, 3 hour wait for wheelchair.
I am 83 and have reduced mobility. Last Sat 13th/Sun 14th I flew overnight from Toronto to Malaga via Paris with Air France. Requested assistance at all airports had been confirmed and excellent wheelchair service was provided at Toronto and again in Malaga. However, at Charles de Gaulle I and three other elderly disabled passengers were forced to wait for over three hours in the arrival hall, no water or toilets within walking distance. The Air France ground staff at the desk (which is 100 metres from the seating area, why?) were very cooperative and concerned but their frequent telephone requests for wheelchairs produced no results. Every half hour or so we were told assistance would be there in 20 or 30 minutes but no wheelchairs arrived. I and the other passengers all missed our connecting flight to Malaga and had to take a flight some hours later. This change of flight was presumably the cause of my luggage not arriving until the next day. We had arrived in Paris at 08:10 and at 11:10 we were still in the arrivals hall. As the time for the later flight drew near I believe the Air France ground staff were considering using their own cars to take us somehow to the other terminal. Finally, wheelchairs did show up to take us to the later flight, too late to visit the Lounge. The pusher (labelled "Samsic Assistance") told me that the terminal he was taking me to to catch the Malaga flight was not regularly in his area of service. That is no excuse for leaving us in the arrivals hall for more than three hours and causing us to miss our connection. I had booked this trip in Premiere Affaires Class at considerable expense because of my age and disability. I was not able to get to the Lounge at all and instead spent over half a day in the public area, mostly in the barren arrivals hall. So someone's computer dropped our names off the list. So the wheelchair control is some distance away. They could have brought the chairs from Germany in less time. If the staffing or equipping is so lean that it takes more than three hours to respond to an unexpected need for assistance they should resign immediately. This is worse than bad service, it is an insult, disgusting, chaos.
I am 83 and have reduced mobility. Last Sat 13th/Sun 14th I flew overnight from Toronto to Malaga via Paris with Air France. Requested assistance at all airports had been confirmed and excellent wheelchair service was provided at Toronto and again in Malaga. However, at Charles de Gaulle I and three other elderly disabled passengers were forced to wait for over three hours in the arrival hall, no water or toilets within walking distance. The Air France ground staff at the desk (which is 100 metres from the seating area, why?) were very cooperative and concerned but their frequent telephone requests for wheelchairs produced no results. Every half hour or so we were told assistance would be there in 20 or 30 minutes but no wheelchairs arrived. I and the other passengers all missed our connecting flight to Malaga and had to take a flight some hours later. This change of flight was presumably the cause of my luggage not arriving until the next day. We had arrived in Paris at 08:10 and at 11:10 we were still in the arrivals hall. As the time for the later flight drew near I believe the Air France ground staff were considering using their own cars to take us somehow to the other terminal. Finally, wheelchairs did show up to take us to the later flight, too late to visit the Lounge. The pusher (labelled "Samsic Assistance") told me that the terminal he was taking me to to catch the Malaga flight was not regularly in his area of service. That is no excuse for leaving us in the arrivals hall for more than three hours and causing us to miss our connection. I had booked this trip in Premiere Affaires Class at considerable expense because of my age and disability. I was not able to get to the Lounge at all and instead spent over half a day in the public area, mostly in the barren arrivals hall. So someone's computer dropped our names off the list. So the wheelchair control is some distance away. They could have brought the chairs from Germany in less time. If the staffing or equipping is so lean that it takes more than three hours to respond to an unexpected need for assistance they should resign immediately. This is worse than bad service, it is an insult, disgusting, chaos.
Oct 25th, 2012, 11:50 AM
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you need to complain to AIr France. Hopefully you got the names of the gate agents because REGARDLESS of the line they fed you they were dropping the ball. They should have been escalating this a LOT quicker and not just giving you "it will be soon" If their supervisors were NOT aware of the mess then they were not "cooperative" (Being polite is not the only part of the job!)
