Tyler Schilhabel's honeymoon was less-than-perfect after a horrendous experience with United Airlines.
Schilhabel, a head coach for a high school football team in Bakersfield, California, uses a wheelchair as he is paralyzed from the waist down. When flying, he makes sure to notify airlines of his handicap so they can provide special wheelchairs that are narrow enough to get down the plane aisle.
"I always make it a point to let them know I need an aisle chair," he told Bakersfield.com. "I show up at least three hours early to make sure it is taken care of. I did all my due diligence to make sure I covered myself."
Though Schilhabel did his part, United Airlines did not. He was forced to scoot down the length of the airplane to his seat because United didn't provide him with a suitable wheelchair on multiple flights.
Schilhabel and his wife flew from Los Angeles International Airport to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with a stopover in Chicago. The aisle wheelchair was not made available when he landed in Chicago.
It was made worse by the fact that he had to wait for everyone to leave the plane which took 20 minutes, and then another 15 minutes before a flight attendant carried him to his own wheelchair at the front of the plane. He barely had time to make his connecting flight which departed 50 minutes after he landed.
"It's frustrating, it's humiliating, it's exhausting," he said. "I started to feel physically sick. It was just an unpleasant experience all around."
"I've flown with a number of different airlines and either they have the aisle chair waiting there when we land or it's there within five minutes."
When the couple landed in Punta Cana, there was no wheelchair, no elevator, and no ramp to get off the plane, just a flight of portable stairs. Schilhabel had to scoot off the plane and have his wife help him down the stairs, which injured her wrist in the process.
"We spent the first half-day of our honeymoon laying around and trying to recover from that debacle," he said.
The nightmare didn't end there but continued on his flight back to LAX.
Though there was an elevator lift that assisted Schilhabel onto the plane in Punta Cana, once they landed in Chicago, there was no aisle wheelchair.
He once again had to wait 45 minutes to deboard the plane and was forced to scoot down 31 rows to his wheelchair.
"I got really dizzy," he said. "I was pretty close to passing out. When you exert a lot of energy, at times that can happen."
After this experience, Schilhabel wants nothing to do with United. They offered to refund his and his wife's tickets and provide $1,000 in travel vouchers.
He said, "It's not worth it to take their vouchers and run the risk of going through all of this again. It's more about letting people know that this is unacceptable."
Schilhabel hopes his story will bring more awareness to travelers with and without disabilities, and perhaps entice airlines to make air travel accessible for all.
"People need to know. And (United) needs to be held responsible for the frankly terrible service that they offered," he added.
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