Hi, I don't want to want to sound unhelpful but I think that the best advice I can give you is to try and find another airline instead of Ryanair. My mother is disabled and after 2 distressing experiences we decided not to give them a 3rd chance.

Re your specific questions, if her chair doesn't comply with their regulations, don't expect them to be at all flexible about this - they won't be. They apply their rules re disability assistance as rigidly as any of their others in my experience. Most airlines 'tag' wheelchairs on check-in and then will allow whelchairs users to take the own chair right to the plane door where it is then collected from them and placed in the hold - a bit like with baby buggies - and it is then off-loaded on arrival and is brought to the plane door for disembarking. We have never tried this with Ryanair so I cannot comment on how efficiently and helpfully this will be done for her. Remember that if she cannot make her own way down the aisle of the plane, you will need to make this clear when booking (see below) so that a special narrow chair can be provided in order for the assistance staff to move her down the aircraft to her seat.

Legally she cannot be required to always have someone with her unless she needs 'personal care' eg assistance with toilet needs but unless she is very assertive then I would say, yes, disabled people would be well advised to never travel on Ryanair without someone who knows her rights and can be an advocate for her when dealing with Ryanair intransigence. The final straw for us was when the cabin crew did not request the required support from the ground crew on arrival and then berated us for still being on the plane! We had remained in our seats as requested until everybody else had disembarked and then once they realised their error, they tried to make us get off the plane and wait on the apron so they could board the waiting passengers. It earned us some black looks but I was adamant that we were not shifting and would remain seated until the assistance brought the requested wheelchair to take her on the long walk to the terminal arrived. My mother was close to tears by this time and I think would have complied and stood in the cold on her two sticks if I hadn't been there with her. My parents have regularly travelled on other airlines and by train on their own (both together and individually) with no problems but I would never trust Ryanair to provide properly for them without another more assertive member of the family being there.

However, the key thing to remember with Ryanair is that your problems will start with the fact that we found that you couldn't just book on-line in the normal way because Ryanair will only accept 4 passengers per flight who need assistance and there is no way of checking this out with their on-line booking system. So the procedure is that you first have to identify which flights you want to book and then phone Ryanair to confirm that they have 'room' and you are given a code which you have to use when booking when you go back on-line. You can't book over the phone at the time you check that the quota of disabled passengers on your chosen flights hasn't been filled. And if the flights have actually gone up in the time it takes you check this out because other people have booked, then you have to pay the higher price regardless. It is a while since any of my family have used them because of our experiences and this might have changed and it might now be more user friendly - I hope so but doubt it.

Also, once an airline requests the support service at the airport, the provider charges them whether the passenger turns up or not, so Ryanair only requests it once the passenger arrives. This will make it difficult for you to request assistance from the moment she arrives at the arrival car park - it only kicks in once she has checked-in. This also means that potentially she will be left hanging around by the check-in desk while you wait for someone to come. My mother found this distressing because she would get very anxious about whether she would make it to the departure gate in time etc. More to the point, on check-in she will be given a voucher which she must hand over to the cabin crew on boarding because without this they cannot/will not request assistance to be provided at the arrival airport - which is only done once the plane arrives. This means that she will have to remain on the plane until the assistance staff are called and arrive at the plane. How quickly they do so will depend on what other bookings they have from other airlines - usually made well in advance at the time the passenger booked their flight and which most handlers, therefore, give priority too.

My mother is not wheelchair dependent and can manage stairs if necessary but from the sound of it your grandmother can't. Ryanair regards air bridges as being unnecessary - in fact it has stopped using one airport because they were being made to use them and, of course, pay for them. Ryanair prefers whenever possible to make passengers walk or be bussed across the apron and then board using the standard stairs because this is cheaper at most airports than booking and using airbridges. If your grandmother can't manage this, then she would need not only assistance with getting to the plane but for an ambulift to be booked to enable her to board the aircraft. We never attempted booking this - it was always automatically offered by any other airline we have flown with but not Ryanair and I don't know if this too only gets booked once the passenger actually arrrives or not. However, as this is expensive equipment requiring skilled operators, most airports have only a limited number of them and it won't necessarily be in place or even guaranteed to be available if it hasn't been pre-booked.

If despite knowing this you do decide to book her with Ryanair, I would strongly advise that she doesn't fly unaccompanied but more to the point, that her travelling companion knows exactly what she is legally entitled to because Ryanair will never offer anything that costs them money unless you specifically ask for it. Ryanair wanted to originally charge for providing disability assistance and having lost the resulting court case which ruled that they couldn't, it is my experience that instead they have opted to try and dissuade disabled people from booking with them in the first place, let alone exercise their rights, by making it as difficult for them as possible whilst still remaining just within the law.

SM

To reinforce what SMa says - this is the latest news about Ryanair's attitude to the disabled.

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2011/04/15/36867/ryanair+found+guilty+of+disability+discrimination+case.html

Two interesting points, the fact that Ryanair offered a load of hush money to keep things quiet (not like them!) and the Judges comments. But nothing new in that Ryanair try to blame everyone else but their own shabby operation.

Ryanair of course announced a couple of weeks ago that they were pulling out of Alicante because they don't want to pay for "unneccesary" airbridges - if they did use them then disabled passengers wouldn't need specially booked lifts to reach the door.

Thanks for the information guys, much appreciated.

I'm worried about the dimensions issue; as the height of her chair is 92cm, but ryanairs allowance is only 86cm. I can't immagine that they wouldn't allow it as its a standard sized chair, so i would like to know if anyone has been refused to board their due to this issue.

I can't immagine that they wouldn't allow it as its a standard sized chair,

I certainly can! Never, ever assume that Ryanair will be reasonable. You might want to check this post at the link below for more detail of the case that Steve refers to as an example of how unreasonable they can be!

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=151376

Seriously, Ryanair has a long history of very poor customer service in relation to the needs of disabled passengers. If her chair is bigger than the stated dimensions that they state that they will accept, can you afford to take the chance? It doesn't really matter whether other passengers on Ryanair have or have not had their chairs accepted in the past, their rules allow them to refuse to accept your grandmother's if they choose to do so - end of story - and she could be the unfortunate passenger who encounters an intransigent staff member having a bad day and who doesn't care whether it puts his/her employer in a bad light because they are fed up of being badly treated themselves. The question to ask yourself is 'What will we/she do if they refuse to carry her wheelchair?' Arguing that is only 6cms outside their rules is unlikely to get you far. It doesn't matter if it's a standard size - they don't allow as handluggage the standard size for cabin baggage that nearly every other airline does either.

If it was my grandmother, I wouldn't take the risk no matter how cheap they are - better to find a more accomodating carrier and spare her the possible heartbreak of being denied boarding or being stranded at her destination without the key aid that keeps her mobile. They could give me the ticket for nothing and it wouldn't make any difference - I would never take the risk that when push came to shove (literally on Ryanair!) that on the day she wouldn't be able to travel at all.

SM

Wheelchairs don't get measured as the only time disabled passengers are out of them will be on board, the assistance staff (most likely OCS if travelling from the UK) take it and then it get put straight in the hold, in the last two and half years of working for the company I've never known anyone being rejected because their wheelchair is too big, and we do see all different shapes and sizes. Only last week I had a passenger with an electric scooter, this was taken with no problems, and obviously this is a lot bigger than a standard wheelchair.
And they've done away with the vouchers now as well, all assistance is now printed on the boarding card. The assistance the other end is notified internally, however on the odd occasion communications do break down, but crew will always remind the flight deck as they start the commence to radio through to request it.
Where are you looking at flying from/too? If its an airport I'm familiar with I can let you know procedures if they are any different?
Some smaller airports (such as a lot of french airports) don't actually have ambulifts either, its kind of hard to explain but they use a sort of chair with wheels on the bottom, you get strapped in and its sort of wheeled down the steps with two of the assistance staff.