Airport Transportation And Special Needs Clientele

Airport transportation has a responsibility to special needs clientele who are wheelchair bound, because the airline requires all passengers to be strapped into an assigned seat on an airplane. There is no provision for wheelchairs inside a passenger jet. For safety, the client must check their personal wheelchair and sit in an airplane seat, fastened in securely like all the other passengers. Transport workers get the job of transferring disabled passengers from their personal wheelchairs onto their seat.

Transfers can be problematic, especially when a passenger has no use of their limbs. In this case, the transport workers must often physically lift the client. Back injury to transport workers associated with this type of job responsibility costs airlines a great deal in terms of workmen's compensation claims. The cost of paid days off to injured employees who need time to recuperate and the additional cost of hiring temporary workers to do the job puts a major strain on an airport or airline's budget.

Airport transportation services could benefit from a solution to this problem. Transport workers (who may one day find themselves forced to find alternative careers due to job related injuries) could benefit from a solution. Most importantly, special needs clientele (who may some day find themselves bumped from their flight due to the lack of a capable transport worker) can benefit from a solution.

The solution is a transport wheelchair that is specifically designed to reduce the possibility of transfer-related injuries by addressing the problems associated with standard wheelchairs in an institutional setting. A chair without removable parts to be lost, damaged, or stolen, but with an adjustable arm-lift that makes passenger transfers simple and painless, can serve as a sturdy alternative to the average wheelchair. Attendees simply raise the arms and use the safe pivot method of placing a disabled client from a personal wheelchair onto the transport chair. The smooth transfer method virtually eliminates potentially injurious situations to clients and transport attendees.

This safety measure will ultimately result in financial savings for airports that employ the use of newly developed transport chairs. On-the-job worker injuries stemming from attendees lifting paraplegic and other special needs clientele will decrease. A decline in work-related back injury translates into declines in worker's compensation claims, which on average pay out $50,000 a year.

A decline in the actual cost of an employer's worker's compensation insurance plan would ultimately be possible with a long-term record of fewer injuries. Employer benefits include declines in paid sick leave for employees recuperating from transfer-related injuries and reduce the need for temporary hires. All of this means financial gains for employers and increased safety for workers and clients.

Incidents of injury to special needs clients as a result of poor transfer is limited compared to worker injury. However, with the safety features on the newer transport chairs, it is unlikely that passenger claims will continue to rise.

Special needs clientele need not be concerned about being injured or injuring someone while being lifted, nor about finding a transport chair to get them safely to their aircraft in time for take off. When these chairs are returned to their rack, stacked and locked, all bases are covered.