Bringing your own wheelchair

Louche Lad

Can you take your own wheelchair when flying?

My mother will bring her wheelchair when she and my father fly soon. She's not wheelchair-bound — she only needs it along on those really long stretches you get in airports (she gets exhausted walking long distances).

Do you have to make special arrangements with Ryanair or the airports (Shannon, Paris Beauvais)? Or is it OK just to turn up with it? It's just a simple manual chair that my father will push. They don't actually require assistance from airline or airport staff.

How would the wheelchair be loaded onto the aircraft? With children's buggies, or do they do something else?

(I've already looked at the Ryanair site but there's nothing definitive — only things about electric wheelchairs etc. on http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions which is not useful.)

veetwin

Yeah an ordinary wheelchair is treated pretty much like a child's buggy. It's gets a baggage tag at check in and it's left at the door of the aircraft where the handlers will place it in the hold. The handlers on the other end will remove It from the hold and have it at the aircraft door ready when the passenger disembarks. That's how it should work anyway!

Louche Lad

I've now discovered that you simply specify when booking that a person will be bringing their own wheelchair.