How to Help Prevent Disabled Airport Service for Handicapped Travelers : Airlines: Though U.S. carriers generally do a good job of providing wheelchair assistance, conflicting systems and hectic schedules cause occasional slip-ups. Get help from airline, not airport, representatives.

If the system is working properly, airline passengers who need a wheelchair to negotiate lengthy airport terminals should find a chair and an escort waiting when their flight lands. But sometimes the system stumbles, as appears to be the case involving one beleaguered Washington, D.C.-area family who had to wait so long for help that they missed their flight home.

By law, U.S. airlines must make available some form of wheelchair or electric cart service at no additional charge to passengers, and many infirm, disabled or elderly travelers have come to rely on the assistance for boarding, unloading or making connecting flights. So did Jerome and Mary Jane Kossar of Fairfax, Va., who say they reserved an airport wheelchair for Jerome’s 89-year-old mother Sonia when the three took a vacation to Mexico last month. Twice when they needed the chair to make a tight connection, it was missing.

If you find yourself in the Kossars’ predicament, to whom do you turn for help? Procedures for providing wheelchair service are, to say the least, confusing because they vary by airline and airport. So it is no wonder in the hectic flurry of air travel that things do go awry occasionally.

“I’d say we get a gentle stream of these complaints,” says Peter Shaw-Lawrence, executive director of the New York-based Society for the Advancement of Travel for the Handicapped. He estimates that about 10% of travelers who request wheelchair assistance run into difficulties.

The Kossars became part of these statistics on a round-trip flight from Washington to the Mexican resort of Cancun, which required a change of planes each way in Chicago. Months in advance, the family had requested a wheelchair, says Mary Jane Kossar, and no trouble was expected because they had flown United, the offending airline, on a previous trip and the carrier had provided excellent service.

On the outward-bound leg of last month’s journey, however, the chair they expected was not waiting at the Chicago terminal--although the Kossars say they repeated their request to an attendant on the flight to Chicago--and they were delayed in Chicago 15 minutes while they arranged for one. As a result, they just barely made their connecting flight to Cancun. Nor was there a chair waiting in Cancun, and one had to be rounded up on the spur of the moment. And again on the homeward leg, there was no chair waiting in Chicago--this time 10 minutes evaporated before they were able to find one.

Those lost minutes proved crucial, says Mary Jane Kossar, because her party of three missed their Washington-bound flight “by seconds.” Unfortunately, it was the last flight that evening to Washington National Airport, where the Kossars’ daughter was waiting to pick them up. Instead, they were put on a plane for Washington Dulles, and ended up landing about 90 minutes after their originally scheduled arrival time, in a different Washington airport.

By requesting a wheelchair in advance, the Kossars took the proper step that should have assured them one. But the system failed them, perhaps because it has an inherent potential for foul-ups. Each airline has established its own procedure for providing wheelchairs, and these procedures vary by airport. Not surprisingly, passengers can get confused. The fact that complaints actually number as few as they do suggests that the airlines--against big odds--really do make a conscientious effort to have wheelchairs and escorts available.

Essentially, each airline is responsible for providing wheelchair service for the passengers it is carrying at all of the airports it serves. If a problem develops, travelers who need help should always contact an employee of the airline on which they are traveling, not an airport employee. The airport itself does not provide the service.

Among the variables: Who actually pushes the wheelchairs? At large airports, some carriers contract with private firms for wheelchair duty.

At the optimum, some airlines offer door-to-door service for their passengers at some airports; that is, a wheelchair and escort are provided from the entranceway of the airport terminal through security, to the airplane and off again through baggage claim, to a waiting car or taxi at the destination.

For any wheelchair service, travelers usually have several options: They can request a wheelchair without escort, and an accompanying passenger can assist; they can request both a wheelchair (or electric cart) and an escort, or, if traveling with a personal wheelchair, they can request an escort only.

If you need wheelchair assistance for a flight, these precautions may assure a smoother trip:

--Make your request for a wheelchair when you reserve your flight. It gives the airline an idea of how many wheelchairs it will need at a specific time, which is to your benefit.

--Query the reservations clerk on the type of service the airline provides at the airports that you will be using. Do you get door-to-door assistance, or are you--or an accompanying passenger--responsible for retrieving luggage from the baggage claim area? Will the escorts assist you onto and off the plane or leave you at the boarding gate with a gate attendant?

--Arrive at the airport early. Maneuvering a wheelchair through a busy airport takes extra time. On arrival, you may have to wait until a wheelchair can be summoned, and you should not expect an escort to race you down a corridor to catch a flight.

--Renew your request for a wheelchair when checking in or at the boarding gate. The request should be forwarded to your connecting and destination airports. While aloft, ask a flight attendant to have your request reaffirmed once more by radio. The Kossars said they attempted this tactic--suggested by the Society for the Advancement of Travel for the Handicapped--but the flight attendants refused.

--Be wary of tight connections. A 35-minute connection may not be sufficient if you must be helped off a plane and wheeled to a distant gate. This is especially true if no escort has been assigned or the escort is delayed. Ask for a routing that does not require hectic--and stressful--scrambling. If a chair is not waiting at your destination, get help from an employee of the airline you are flying. The most obvious sources of help are flight attendants. The attendants should assist or at least see that some member of the ground crew does, but remember that they may be pressed to catch another flight themselves. If you can exit on your own, go to the nearest customer service desk for help.

A free 48-page pamphlet, “Access Travel: Airports,” details facilities, services and accessible design features at 553 airport terminals worldwide. The publication is aimed at older travelers and those with disabilities. It is published by the Airports Assn. Council International. For a copy, write the Consumer Information Center, Pueblo, Colo. 81009.