My wife is disabled and needs wheelchair assistance at airports. Stuff like this happens to her all the time. I was not shocked to see the poster above saying it happens 30% of the time to them. The problem is capitalism, bureaucracy and lack of accountability.

Wheelchair assistance is provided not by the airline, but by the airport, who hires some local company to do it.

These companies without exception are the lowest bidder, and their management is trying to scrape maximum profit by providing minimum service.

This means not enough staff, staff who don't care because they are woefully underpaid, site supervisors who are incompetent and under trained and wheelchairs that are poorly maintained.

My wife often has to endure wheelchairs that are like that shopping cart I'm sure you've pushed that lists to the left / only three wheels touch the ground / makes a "clunk" sound every few steps... These pieces of junk can actually really hurt her and have contributed to at least one ER visit.

So she started speaking up for herself, complaining and asking for better wheelchairs. Well... The assistance staff (who never speak English as a first language and often just can't even parse what she's saying) have refused, ignored her, told her other chairs aren't available when we're literally looking at chairs just sitting there empty.

I have told the assistance staff to wait with her and our luggage, gone and gotten another chair myself and then switched her into it while they stand there looking like an annoyed goat, not lifting a finger.

This isn't even counting the absurd number of times there is NO wheel chair assistance at the gate when we arrive, or there are four people who need it but only two chairs, or the gate agents call for a chair and it takes them 45 minutes to come. I have called airlines on her behalf when she's traveling alone, because she's stranded in some arrival gate with no assistance, after having to drag herself and her bags off the plane alone and the gate agents have left her there alone. We've had shockingly similar experiences in San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Denver, Las Vegas and Albuquerque. It's chronic, and a result of industry cutting corners and doing the bare minimum they can get away with.