Why airport parking is harder for wheelchair users
Airport car parking is a funny beast; we all take car parking for granted, but is this wise when you are travelling to an airport on your way to a flight departure. If you are not a regular visitor to the airport it may take you time to find an airport. I nearly had the problem of missing a flight at Stansted Airport once simply because I had not pre-booked my airport parking.
The airport driver was given a disciplinary warning for taking a wheelchair passenger. Why you may ask was that? If I had waited the 25 minutes for the special transport I would have missed my flight, knowing this the airport bus driver allowed me onto his vehicle.
When reaching the terminal one of his superiors saw me disembarking from the bus and issued the driver a warning. Who told me? It was on my return to the airport where time was not a problem that I arranged special transport the driver who took me to the car park informed me of the warning received.
Incredible to believe an airport worker would receive a warning for helping someone in a wheelchair catch a flight. That was a lesson learnt, and to be fair an expensive lesson, as the car parking for two days was not cheap I can tell you.
That was back in 2002; since then airport parking has become a lot easier to organise and book via the web. You can save money with airport car parking costs through dedicated booking websites through pre-booking.
GoSimply is a great site for disabled travelers as it offers information on what car parks are disabled friendly. Within the car park details listed on the site, I can clearly see if the car park offers disabled access, which not all don’t. The other excellent feature on the GoSimply site is the amount of reviews from other travellers
Booking airport parking in advance makes sense for the following reasons:
- It gives peace of mind
- You can reduce costs
- You can park closer to the airport
- Take the worry out of finding a suitable parking
- Major car parks are monitored 24/7
My subsequent travels to Stansted airport have all resulted in me pre-booking my Stansted Airport Parking in advance. as all disabled travellers should.
Why leave finding a suitable car park at an airport to chance! If you are delayed by traffic whilst travelling to an airport, the last thing you want is to be scurrying about looking for a suitable car park and then finding a 20 minute transfer time to the terminal will make you late for your flight.
