A few months ago, my husband and I traveled by Delta Airlines to LAX.
My husband is disabled and uses a wheelchair to get around and a walker to
take a few steps. He has a very specialized wheelchair which he can steer
independently.
We checked the wheelchair at the gate. On arrival at LAX, my husband had a
wheelchair assist with an airport wheelchair to the outside for a ride. I pushed  his wheelchair to the car which was waiting for us.
As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we noticed that the chair was badly
damaged. A strong, steel post which is the steering mechanism had been
severed off the chair. The broken piece was placed within the seat cushions. It
was obvious that someone knew it was broken and placed it in the chair
without saying anything. The only plausible way that the post would have
broken this way was by forcefully dropping the chair.
At the hotel, we immediately tried to contact Delta Airlines. After being on
hold for hours, we were told by a customer service agent that there was
nothing she could do until the LAX reached us. We asked for a loaner chair so
that my husband could leave the hotel. Again, we were told they couldn’t do
that for us. We tried many times for the first three days to reach someone. We
spoke to 6 different agents. Some said they were sorry but they couldn’t help
us. We responded that we bought our tickets from Delta Airlines, not LAX,
and were hoping they could assist us.
We had gone to California for a family reunion. We missed the first three
days of events, sitting in a hotel room. We spent about 12 hours on the phone
trying to get assistance from Delta and even when asking to speak to the
supervisor we were told no. On day six, we finally had his chair repaired.
After 72 hours of getting nowhere, we purchased a new, very simple and not
adequate wheelchair. We needed to have a way to get out. We ordered the
new parts for the broken chair and had them sent to LA, hired a driver to
bring them to us and hired a technician to repair the chair.
At that point, we had two wheelchairs which was a struggle for me to load
into a car due to size and weight.
On our return home, we filed the claim. We were immediately told that Delta
would reimburse us for the cost of the repair of my husband’s chair and the
new one which we had to purchase. We were also told that the claim was
going to be sent to customer service to see what else could be done. We were
told that the airline always has a 24/7 helpline for disability issues. We asked
why not one of the many customer service people we had spoken to, knew
that this service existed?!
After waiting an additional month, we contacted Delta Airlines again. We
were told that they would give us $ 100.00 gift card and a flight voucher.
The gift card is a meaningless gesture which is rather insulting. The voucher
is worthless since we don’t have faith in flying with Delta again. And we
were told that they were closing the case even though we were not satisfied.

If we win, we would expect an apology in writing and with a call from Delta
management. We would expect and hope that there is training so that the
customer service people know about the 24/7 service for passengers with
disabilities. And we would expect compensation, not in a voucher form, for
our flights, our hotels and for the difficulties which we incurred due to the
airlines incompetent way of dealing with this problem.
If we lose, we will be sure to contact news media, use social media, contact
the ADA organizations, AARP and our senators and congress representatives.