I recently tore my ACL and meniscus and have bone bruises that leave me non-weight bearing for two months before I can have surgery. It's a complete nightmare and totally out of my normal operating procedures to have to depend so much on others for help. I called ahead of time to find out the policies for transporting a wheelchair and was told that every plane is equipped with storage on board for a wheelchair and it’s first come, first serve. On our flight from Denver to Baltimore, the ground crew and flight attendants were AMAZING. They not only stowed my chair, but assisted with my crutches and my and my husband’s bags. The flight home, however, was a different story. When we inquired about stowing the chair, the gate agent said it was up to the flight attendants if I could store the chair on board. The man who wheeled me down was adamantly opposed to it and said multiple times there’s no way it would fit (when we knew this wasn't true since it fit perfectly on the flight out). Once on board, I asked the flight attendant at the front of the plane who said yes and started removing her things, but a different flight attendant came from the middle of the plane and said no. The female flight attendant told me I was the first passenger in her three years working to ever request it, but that she would have gladly done it for us. At that point, we were completely disgusted by the whole experience and just allowed them to gate check the chair. Does that say flight attendant bag storage? Once we were seated, we clearly noticed the label on the storage that indicates that’s what the area is specifically for. So my question is this: How can some Southwest employees be well trained and know the policy while others are completely unaware of it? And how is it okay for the ones that don’t know about it to be so rude? Especially an employee that never boarded the plane and would have absolutely nothing to do with where it was stored? We are loyal Southwest customers and this is not what we have come to expect from a customer-service oriented business such as Southwest.
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