I traveled with my fiancé and mother from Arizona to Colorado to Florida and then back again. My mother needed a wheelchair service due to having surgery about a month ago and was in a soft back brace. The Phoenix airport there and back was absolutely fantastic; the staff was incredibly helpful and there was always a wheelchair available for us. The person who would push the wheelchair was cautious, pleasant and took great care of her. However, when we go to Colorado we had a terrible experience! The staff in Colorado that pushes the wheelchairs were constantly busy and were practically running around the terminals and not being cautious in the wheelchair at all. Obviously, if someone is in a wheelchair, they need special care and rushing through people, making sharp and quick turns, and going very fast through ramps and bumps is likely to cause a lot of pain to the person in the wheelchair. Plus the person pushing my mother was complaining that they needed to hurry up because they were incredibly busy and Frontier doesn’t have enough wheelchairs to be able to handle all the incoming traffic. If this is the case, and the employees know this, then why has nothing been done to correct the situation? When we got onto the plane there was a stewardess standing in the middle of the aisle expecting people to just squeeze through her. With my mother being in a back brace she cannot squeeze through people, so I asked her politely if she could go into one of the many empty aisles so my mother could get through and she became very irritated and incredibly theatrical as if it were difficult to simply take one step to the left. We then got to Florida and had another fantastic experience. Again the staff was cautious, helpful, friendly and pleasant to be around. They took excellent care of my mother.
On the way back from Florida to Colorado to Arizona, we had similar experiences, Florida was again fantastic and helped us all the way through the terminal, taking their time and taking good care of us. Then as soon as we arrived in Colorado a man picked us up and wheeled my mother to the other terminal and told her to get up and take a seat in the section marked for handicapped people and left. This had never happened before so we were so confused and in shock! We still had 2 hours before our flight and he just left us there. My fiancé followed after him and asked if we could have the wheelchair back because my mother needed to use the restroom and he said, “No, no one is allowed to take the wheelchairs because it is a liability and he could not take her to the restroom because he was busy! ” This is where I intervened and went up to a counter and explained the situation and that my mother needed to use the restroom. After waiting for 25 minutes I finally went up to one of the people pushing a wheelchair and asked for some help and she also said, “I can’t, hold on” and then walked away from me to another woman and pointed to us saying we needed to use the restroom. It took 30 minutes before my mom got to the restroom. That is completely unacceptable, if she had been older there would have been no way for her to hold it and she would have had an “accident” in front of hundreds of people, becoming incredibly embarrassed and making it so employees would have had to come clean it up. The employee who finally took us to the restroom said we needed to hurry up and she had to take us back because Frontier at Colorado does not have enough wheelchairs and have a lot of people who need wheelchairs and she had to go. After getting my mother back to her seat I went up to the woman at the counter again and asked for her to make sure she called someone to take her onto the plane since she cannot walk that far. She assured me one would be there and when the plane started to board there was no wheelchair in sight! There were three people who needed wheelchair assistance, my mother, an elderly woman and a man who had just had his knee replaced. I went up to the woman and she said, “They still haven’t come yet? ” Obviously, no they had not come yet. So she told me to look around for a person with a wheelchair and they would be there soon. I started to gather my stuff and we were just going to walk to the plane when finally one wheelchair came for all three people! My mom was there first so they took her, but the other two people ended up having to walk and were in excruciating pain!
We have never flown Frontier before this and I can promise you we will never fly Frontier again. We have never been treated so horribly before. What we experienced was completely unacceptable and should never happen to anyone traveling, especially to people requiring wheelchair assistance. If staff members all know there are not enough wheelchairs, then why has nothing been done? Plus, this was the only airport to not let us use the wheelchair because of it being a liability. If this is the case, then wouldn’t it be more of a liability to deny people to use wheelchairs, so they have to attempt to walk from destination A to destination B and become hurt, because no one was there to help them?
According to your website:
“At Frontier we're proud of our service — especially when it comes to our customers. We strive to provide you with a quality travel product, including exceptional customer service. Below we have outlined our Customer Service Commitment, also known as our Customer Service Plan. These 16 commitments cover our everyday activities, as well as what we'll do when things may not go as planned.”
There was no customer service at Colorado, no one seemed to even understand what customer service means. The standards at this airport are lacking to say the least.
“5. Accommodating Travelers with Special Needs We are dedicated to meeting the travel needs of each of our customers, including those with disabilities and other special needs. We'll provide point of contact information for travelers with special needs at our ticket counters, gates, when calling our Reservations Department at 800-432-1FLY (1359), or via email to [email protected]. FlyFrontier.com provides detailed information to help passengers with special needs plan for their travel.
Frontier employees are trained to comply with the Air Carrier Access Act (14 CFR Part 382).in accordance with the act, we will not discriminate against any individual with a disability.
We want to ensure that we treat all passengers with kindness and respect. For those passengers with special needs, we offer a variety of services, including:
�—�Pre-boarding assistance on request.
�—�Assistance with boarding and deplaning and the use of ground wheelchairs, aisle chairs, onboard wheelchairs, and lifts.
�—�Assistance with stowing and retrieving carry-on items.
�—�Transportation within the airport using wheelchairs or electric carts.
�—�Transportation of personal assistive devices.individuals may choose to have devices returned on arrival at the entrance to the aircraft on the jet bridge, or in the baggage claim area.
�—�Assistance with visual, auditory, cognitive, or mobility disabilities.
�—�Accommodation for certain medical requirements, including the use of FAA-approved portable oxygen concentrators and other FAA-approved battery-operated respiratory devices. Frontier is not equipped to transport or provide medical oxygen. Additional information may be found on our Special Needs Travel pages.
�—�Accommodation for accompanying service animals in the cabin for a passenger with a disability.
�—�Access during all hours of operation to a Complaint Resolution Official (CRO) in all airports to answer any specific questions regarding air travel. “
Absolutely none of these so-called services were met at your Colorado Airport. It astounds me that Phoenix International Airport and Orlando International Airport could be so wonderful and accommodating, but Denver International Airport, which is the HUB for Frontier Airlines, could be so careless with people needing assistance. Changes need to be made or somewhere down the line your staff and company is going to end up being charged with discrimination against people needing wheelchair assistance or worse, someone is going to end up hurt. What if this experience happened to your loved one?
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