I have one or two airplane trips coming up soon. It will be the first time I’ve ever flown before. I’m sure I will be writing more about them when the time comes, but for now I figured I’d summarize some things I’ve learned over the past several weeks while planning for these trips.
Having SMA and being confined to a wheelchair implies certain difficulties when it comes to air travel. You cannot just take your wheelchair on the plane with you, especially a big bulky power wheelchair. It has to go into cargo, and the airplane staff helps you transfer to a regular airplane seat.
For a lot of wheelchair users, this is probably not a big issue. But for people in my situation, who cannot walk at all, you have to be transferred all the way from the gate to where you’ll be sitting on the flight. This means they have to first transfer you to a very small contraption called an aisle chair in order to roll you onto the plane and down the narrow aisle. Then they have to transfer you from the aisle chair to the plane seat. In my case these transfers between seats will be done with a special transfer sling.
Another big issue with flying with a wheelchair is that it must fit into cargo. Wheelchairs aren’t really made to fit into cargo, as it turns out, especially personalized powerchairs. So you have to either take your headrest off or figure out some way to get the wheelchair shorter for most airplane cargo doors. And you also want to avoid your wheelchair being turned on its side, as that could break the armrest or something else on the chair.
Those are some of the biggest issues, and I think I’ve gotten past most of them, at least for one of the trips I am planning. But of course there are a lot of small issues too, and it's important to try to plan as many details as possible. Below are some resources that have come in very handy for me so far in my planning.
This is one of the best resources about the subject. Cory Lee also has SMA and and has been writing a travel blog for several years now. The book is about ten years old, but I think most of the advice it contains is still relevant. It helped me get my head around some of the main challenges of air travel for people in my situation. He goes through giving detailed explanations of what you need to consider and ask about before, during, and after your fight. I won’t go into details, but I do have a checklist that mostly comes from this book. It includes things like making sure you get to the airport 2-3 hours early, asking to be pre-boarded, requesting to keep the aisle chair on the plane with you, getting an upper body harness, applying for TSA PreCheck, among many other things.
Cure SMA has various Zoom socials, and I’ve had the pleasure of attending two or three of them. The last one I attended, we got to do breakout sessions and talk about specific subjects, one of which was flying with SMA. It was just the right time for me and I really learned a lot by talking with three or four other people about their experiences. From that event, I learned about the ableSling, which I have already purchased, as they seem a lot better than similar slings I've seen. Furthermore, I learned a critical piece of information — that I should avoid layovers that are shorter than about 3 hours, especially at large airports.
Cura SMA also offers travel support packages for people with SMA. I applied for one and received it in the mail. There are a lot of nice items in this thing, including a transfer sling (although I plan to use the other one I bought), an Apple AirTag for keeping track of your wheelchair after checking it at the gate, job ticket holders for placing instructions on your wheelchair, and a convenient footstool for use on the airplane, among other handy items.
I’m really thankful that there is so much knowledge about this in the SMA community out there. It gives me a lot of hope to see that many other people with SMA have successfully traveled by plane. Wish me luck on my future travels! Hopefully, it all comes together as planned. I will let you know how it goes.