It is 5:10 a.m. at Dallas Love Field. Those passengers who have forgotten to check in on-line, like me, are lining up at the Southwest Airline counter. Passengers who are unable or ineligible to do on-line check-in are with us, including minor children who will fly unaccompanied, persons in wheelchairs, kids on crutches, persons without computers (gasp!)... We make a nice orderly line of yawners skootching baggage across the grimy tile floor, but there's no one working at the counter. There's a low vibration of anxiety flowing in the line. We have arrived the required hour-plus before our flight for security measures and baggage-handling, but the airline seems not to have taken the same approach.
It is 5:15 a.m. An employee begins barking at us to divide into two lines. One line is for persons deemed able to use a touch screen computer self check-in. The other is for those poor unfortunates considered by the airline to be outrageously demanding individuals who actually need to deal with a human to check-in. It's a wonder Southwest allows them to fly at all!! We split into two orderly lines with nervous yawns.
It is 5:20. A few employees straggle to the counter rolling their eyes at us. The barker looks at the white-haired blind man with his white cane and his hand placed on the shoulder of his daughter in front of him for guidance. The barker chooses this moment to divert our line into the corded maze known as the "queue corral". Instead of walking twenty feet to the counter, the blind man and his daughter must thread the maze down and back, down and back, down and back, down and back. They do so without a word of protest. I am embarrassed to admit I did not protest, even though I would have argued if the blind man were exchanged with my walker-using father.
The barking woman orders us to the touch screens. Then employees behind the counter snarl at us for needing the tag on our baggage that only they can provide.
Just as males became confused about whether holding the door for a female was an insult to her abilities and equality a generation ago, we are now confused about our impulses to assist the disabled. Common sense and common courtesy have been lost to equal access curb-cuts and anxiety about political correctness and disability-based discrimination. I don't know if the barking woman employee was insensitive, unobservant, advised by an attorney, or just plain mean. One would hope that airline employees and security workers who are supposed to be on heightened alert for suspicious terrorists could also be sufficiently alert to spot a blind man with a white cane.
The barking woman orders us to the touch screens. Then employees behind the counter snarl at us for needing the tag on our baggage that only they can provide.
Just as males became confused about whether holding the door for a female was an insult to her abilities and equality a generation ago, we are now confused about our impulses to assist the disabled. Common sense and common courtesy have been lost to equal access curb-cuts and anxiety about political correctness and disability-based discrimination. I don't know if the barking woman employee was insensitive, unobservant, advised by an attorney, or just plain mean. One would hope that airline employees and security workers who are supposed to be on heightened alert for suspicious terrorists could also be sufficiently alert to spot a blind man with a white cane.
If I were standing in line I'd have time to read the National Council on Disability's POSITION PAPER ON ACCESS TO AIRLINE SELF-SERVICE KIOSK SYSTEMS. Also useful is the U.K.'s Tiresias Organization, an information resource for people working in the field of visual disabilities, and its guidelines on accessible tourism queue management. Should you want to continue the fun by playing airport at home, here's where you can order your own Tensabarrier retractable queue control system.
© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder
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