Malaga Mayhem

The second part of this month’s show is all about Phil’s recent trip to Malaga.

After meticulous planning, Phil and Sue, his wife, set off for some winter sunshine. On landing, a broken powered wheelchair meant limitation, frustration, moments of kindness and a lot of stress and cost.

How did Phil and Sue manage?

So, will they ever fly again? Let's just say the train to Spain is suddenly looking very attractive.

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Ilunion Hotel

Transcript

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Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Music.

Announcer  0:10  
This is The Way We Roll, presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend. You can email us at mintyand friend@gmail.com or just search for minty and friend on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Simon Minty  0:31  
Hello and welcome to The Way We Roll with me, Simon Minty 

Phil Friend  0:35  
And me, Phil Friend. I only have one real agenda item today, only a time that you know. I mean, I don't want to talk about Donald Trump or any of that stuff, because it's too scary. But like you, I decided that I'd become a world traveller like you

Simon Minty  0:52  
You already are, aren't you? 

Phil Friend  0:53  
I'm a bit out of the loop now. So Sue and I planned this little winter break in Malaga a place we've never been and it meant doing the flying thing that you've so beautifully described in several of our podcasts over many years, when you've done it, all went well. We got on the plane, there were no problems. I'd made sure that I had an empty bladder. The flight was only two and a half hours, so not being able to go to Loo wasn't an issue, and we we left Luton and landed in Malaga two hours or whatever it was. Later, beautiful. My wheelchair was dutifully brought to the door. As you know, there's always a relief to see your chair. I'm then humped through the plane to plopped into my chair along with three other disabled wheelchair users, and then it wouldn't move. The chair would not move. And we then spent an hour trying to make it move. Figure it out what it was, and it was, it was, I don't know what it was, and I've had this before, and we tried everything anyway, it didn't work. So this is an electric chair, Howard wheelchair. How wheelchair, pretty new. Ironically, serviced the week before I flew because I thought, you know, I needed it to work properly.

So I'm lugged through the airport. This chair weighs 140 kilos. Without me in it, you can free wheel it, but it's very heavy. So the Malaga staff do their thing. It takes us two hours to leave the plane and get to where I'm being met by our holiday driver. So they've now, is now 11 o'clock at night and they're waiting around. They've thank God, are still waiting around. Can

Simon Minty  2:44  
I quickly ask you, how do you feel at this point? Because, is it sheer fury? Is it sadness? Is it what was your gain in your powerlessness?

Phil Friend  2:53  
Right? I felt like a sack of potatoes. Everything was going on around me, partly a language issue. I don't speak Spanish. They did speak English, and they didn't do badly, but it was when they went into their own conversations about what they were going to do. I was excluded from that, and Sue was standing there feeling similarly. Sue was the infuriated one, but I'm now gone back into myself, and I'm thinking, I can't do anything about this. And we eventually arrived at the area where the we got our bags we're now being so we're taken to the car where the van and I'm in, they put me back in my power chair now and then they all realize they can't push me into the van because this the ramps too steep. So I get out the chair again. I'm now putting an airport manual chair again, which, if you've never sat in one are the most uncomfortable chairs on the planet. They're meant to get you from a plane to your chair. They're not meant to be anything else. Eventually, it's decided another car will come and take my chair separately, I will go in the original vehicle. The guy who's driving that is absolutely incandescent, because he's missed about four fares, so he's losing a lot of money. Everybody's furious. There are now eight people trying variously to get me and the chair into the various various vehicles, and we're then driven off to the hotel. I can't bear it. I can't bear it. It was, it was unbelievable. And I have to reference here Martin Sibley, our old mate, Martin Sibley, who has posted on LinkedIn and Facebook and other places, the dreadful journey he had and what happened to him and mine pals into in significance next to his, I have to say, awful. Anyway, we arrive at the hotel. Angry driver stands there waiting for a tip. We've got no cash, so he's now really furious. He pushes the wheelchair and just dumps it we are. So the other car has arrived with my chair. They get it off and shove it in the hotel. So hotel put it around the corner. You. I'm now in an airport chair, a manual wheelchair, which they've agreed to leave with me, and I'm incapable. I can't do anything. I can't get into the bed, I can't get onto the toilet. I can't do any of it, because none of it works from a manual wheelchair. I just can't do

Simon Minty  5:16  
it. Is it? Is I'm trying to think airport chair, do they have big enough wheels, or is it? Yeah,

Phil Friend  5:21  
it's self propelling, but it, I use a ton, and it's sort of semi flat tires, you know, there's no cushion on it, yeah, it's dreadful. Anyway, we got through the night. Next day. Hotel start, absolutely brilliant. I ring a supplier in Malaga. I get a hired powered chair, which comes that afternoon, so we can get out this bloody awful thing. I then phone a company I've discovered can repair my chair. I call them, well, we're very busy. We can't come. The hotel staff persuade them to come. They come the following day, take the chair away. So we're now two days in, and I've done nothing yet except trying to sort out chairs. The chair I borrow or hire costs me 180 euros, and it's a bit of a dog's breakfast, but it's a bloody site more comfortable than what I was in. It doesn't have any of the sort of seat raise, tilts, any of that stuff, but it works. So at least we now go into Malaga, and we see the place, and we do things. I wouldn't just say we hadn't done anything, because we have. Then I get a call from the guys at the repair shop to say, not repairable. The master computer module is broken. It will take us two weeks to get one. So what do you want to do? So I said, Well, you better bring the chair back and leave it at the hotel. I now go into solving mode, because now I'm thinking to myself, how am I going to get from the hotel to the plane? How am I going to get when I get off the plane? How am I going to get to my car? And if you don't know this, everybody I drive from my car in a wheelchair. So if I haven't got my wheelchair, I can't drive my car. So I'm now starting to think about all those things. So the rest of the holiday is spent worrying. We decide to come back early. We book a new flight for Friday, instead of Saturday. Cost us another 240 quid, or whatever it was, and then we get the hotel, brilliant. We get to the airport in the manual chair that I started off in, and the guys at the airport pushed my chair into and get it onto the plane. I'm paraphrasing here, but they were brilliant at Managua airport going back. They were fantastic. No questions asked. Just do it. I get on the plane. Sigh of relief. Get to Luton Airport. Get off wheelchairs. There

Simon Minty  7:49  
can't be any bad stuff.

Phil Friend  7:51  
Wheelchair gets off loaded. I'm in the manual chair again. I've been now offloaded into the plane, into the carry on chair, then swapped into that bloody awful thing, wheeled to baggage reclaim, and I say to them, and my chair is now somewhere else, but it's there. And I say to them, right, here's the thing. I need my chair. I need you to get me in my chair. I need to get to my car, which is in car Part B, whatever. It's not far. Did he did it. Can't do that. So I said, What do you mean? You can't do that. We are allowed to bring you into the airport. We're not allowed to take you out. So I said, What's the difference? We then have what I can only describe as a very polite but very hostile argument. It's too heavy. I will damage my staff. There's a health and safety issue here. We are not pushing it to your car at this point, a very small woman who was serving us about filling in forms for claims and stuff, comes around the corner pushing my wheelchair on her own. She's five foot in her stocking feet. The guy I'm arguing with is like six foot three anyway, some bloke who's in a uniform walks by, comes over and says, what's going on? Yeah. And chummy says, Well, I he won't, he won't do it. We're telling him we've he's got to go home in his car chair and we'll sort the chair out that anyway. So, I explained to him what the problem is, and it turns out he's from DHL. These are the people that manage the unloading of aircraft. They're the baggage guys. And he said, I've been there now, by the way, this is now three hours. I'm still there, but we flew in in the afternoon because we knew there was going to be problems. Yeah, so, so it's still now it's evening, but we're Yeah. So DHL chap says, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to get two of my blokes. We'll push you in your chair. The boat says you can't do that. It's my job. So no, no, no, no, I'll sort this out. If you're not prepared to do it, we'll do it for you. You, at which point six foot three bloke says, Well, if he gets in our manual chair, we can push him to his car if you're going to push his chair. So that's what happened. We now go up to my car, two guys pushing my chair from DHL me in a manual chair being pushed by a passenger assist and they all lump me then into the chair, and it was touch and go, but they got me into my car, locked me in, said goodbye, massive sigh of relief. Except there isn't because, oh,

Simon Minty  10:36  
you can't add any more. I'm, I mean, because, and

Phil Friend  10:40  
I had thought this through. What happens when I get home? I can't get out the car. I'm locked into it. So do I sleep in it? What happens? Anyway, I have a spare power chair at home. So the plan was that Sue, we didn't know if this was going to work, but Sue went and got my power chair, parked it right next to the door. And we got my big transfer board, which is like four foot long, and it bridged the gap, and I was able to slide out of my chair into the replacement at home. So you

Simon Minty  11:13  
leave broken electric chair in the driver in the car, and then you slide out the drivers. I

Phil Friend  11:18  
do. That's exactly what I do. And I then get my two sons in laws the next day, Paul and Neil, to come across, and without any real effort, they get the chair out the car and put it in in the house. Then my my firm that look after my chair came out, I think, the next day, and brought with them a module that they taken from another chair and fitted it into mine while they order a new one, all fixed. But that was Malaga. I should the tell, the tell, PS is I put in a claim to EasyJet for the expenses that I'd incurred and injuries to feelings, kind of thing, and I had to check inside five days. They were very, very quick. I have to say that the big issue was passenger assistance.

Simon Minty  12:18  
I feel we might need another check for myself and all our listeners when they leave this story, because we're getting what's it called residual.

Phil Friend  12:27  
I mean, there's PTSD by proxy that is a

Simon Minty  12:31  
pretty damning, grim, terrified, but, but on the whole, did you have a nice holiday? Sorry, so we

Phil Friend  12:40  
had some nice weather, we had some very nice food, and we did go to some nice, interesting places, yes, but all the time I was uncomfortable and I was worrying about it. No, we did. We did okay. We vowed never, ever, ever, ever to fly again. That's the last time. I'm never going to do that again. I

Simon Minty  13:00  
mean, that's the bugger of it. And I'm, I remember you going away, and how much time you spent planning, and I even asked you about the hotel, because I'm thinking, this would be great. I fancy going there myself. Yes, nice hotel. And the bit that I'm devastated about is that you did so much work and effort, and then yet it crashed and burned. And I my Germany Chip, I flew easy jet, and I, I've been really lucky with EasyJet. They've been brilliant. Always get the cherry bigger up, yeah, it doesn't take too long. And they've been they just kind of get on with it. Um, I'm always like you. They bring your equipment back, and then I turn the key, and it is, I did all the phrase moves. I'm either in heaven or hell. They are the only places. And then when it lights up and moves, I'm like, Oh, I love everybody. And if it doesn't, I smelt on the floor. So my question, when my scooter went broke in Dubai, they didn't have the part, so they took it off a brand new scooter and put it online and said, we'll get another one in two weeks. Was that an option, because, and how did this computer thing break? Was it them smashing it about or just, no,

Phil Friend  14:05  
we just don't know. But they examined the chair. My guy, when it got back, examined the chair, and he said, I can see no signs of it being brutalized. You know, it wasn't dropped the suspension and all that stuff, all works it. There was no visible sign that they'd abused it. And I talked to the DHL guy who helped me at the airport, and he said, this is weird, because we we tie them down. They can't move, and they're in a we put a box in them so, you know, they're pretty it's pretty solid. He said it would have to be very silly if somebody didn't do it properly. But the guy just said to me, these things happen. You know, it's an electrical for it's a busted computer module, effectively. Now, vibration, whatever may have caused it, I'll never know. I can't blame easy jet for that, but the what I know is that it didn't work. That's all. What they did about it was. The passenger assistants at Luton were appalling. The

Simon Minty  15:03  
repair people, I suppose, if they're saying we don't have this model of chair, therefore we can't got that computer, it's

Phil Friend  15:10  
a good question. I never answered it. Did I because my guy immediately said, Well, we take one out of a chair like your Dubai guy did absolutely. I don't know they they did have quickies. They did have my chair, right? But they didn't offer that as a solution. It's

Simon Minty  15:26  
for one for our listeners, I only learned that by default. I mean, I would say also Dubai, it went wrong. It cost me 700 pounds, which was half a scooter. I got the same problem happening in the UK, 150 pounds. Yeah, so you're gonna get stitched up. You gotta here's another thing. Here's another thing. There can't be anymore. Phil, there

Phil Friend  15:44  
is. I took out wheelchair insurance. And I thought, you know this will be so I have it serviced. I take out wheelchair insurance. All this happens to me. I phone up fish, the insurers, yeah, and I say, this has happened. Oh, you'll have to claim that from EasyJet. But what is the point of me having insurance with you? Well, we'll pay. We'll look at it if they don't pay. So I thought, I've just wasted 100 and whatever quid it was on a premium on your quid. Yeah, My chair's, you know, expensive, to be fair. But I just, I just everywhere you look, you know, you think, what is the point of this? So here's the deal. When you talked about Germany, I'm I met a guy who's much, much more severely disabled me. When I flagged this up on WhatsApp and all the places, I got lots of advice from wheelchair users about what to do while we were away. You know, it's very supportive. This one guy said, Why are you doing it like that? I've been to my I go to Malaga quite a lot. I go by train. I went what he said, Yeah, London, Paris, Paris, Barcelona, Barcelona, Malaga. You have a stopover in Barcelona. You can get to Barcelona in a day on the train. Yeah, have a stopover or two in Barcelona, which is very nice. Get the train down to Malaga bingo. There you are. Do the same in reverse. What's wrong with that? You're never parted from your chair. You've got an accessible toilet on the train. You can get food, you can stretch, you know? So that's what Sue and I are beginning to look at. I'm softening Sue up because she was as understandably so, so angry about all this,

Simon Minty  17:21  
but you then also have to manage your your person, your companion, and that that I find really difficult. Yeah,

Phil Friend  17:28  
I mean, Sue's brilliant, but she'd had enough of this. This was just, I

Simon Minty  17:32  
mean, I'm going to come back to the service, but I still want to go to Edinburgh, take the train. Everyone says, Why don't you fly? And I'm like, because it is easier for me. I get on with my skin. I get off it. I have one other tip. I wouldn't ever get my equipment serviced before I go away. I feel it's the kiss of death. If it's working, okay, don't touch it. Well, it hadn't been serviced for two or three years. No. Fair enough. I always thought they start tinkering about and then it bloody goes wrong the week after

Phil Friend  18:00  
to be this bit. This bit doesn't get serviced. It's, you know, the wheels, they all things and adjust bolts and stuff. There's

Simon Minty  18:06  
Sophie Morgan, and there's another guy, the brilliant campaigners of the rights and flights. If an airplane said, Come on, Phil, you can bring your chair on board. Would you fly again?

Phil Friend  18:17  
That might tempt me. There you go. That's a long, a long way off. That's why I love the train, because you're in your chair the whole time. Yeah, you know. And if it goes wrong, it goes wrong, it was going to go wrong anyway, probably,

Simon Minty  18:29  
so your criticism. And I had the same where was it? It was a few years ago, and someone said, Oh, we can't move your scooter, health and safety the way. Oh, god, yeah. And some bloke walked past noble, and he said, what's going on? I said, This is it. And he went, Oh, I'll do it for you. I'll do it for you. And you can't. He said, I can. And off we went and that, but then you're suddenly the benevolence or the was it the kindness of strangers? Your bit is not necessarily easy jet. It's not necessarily the chair. It is the service and the hanging around and the grief that you got sounds more like Luton than anywhere? Yeah, right, yeah.

Phil Friend  19:03  
I mean, Luton, Luton Malaga. When we landed and the chair wasn't working, they did everything they could. They were all over the place. There were sort of panics going on all over the place, but we got sorted, and they never at any point, sort of gave up. I wasn't left thinking, What do I do now? But at Luton Airport, I was because he just said, I'm not doing it. And that was the end of the conversation. As far as he was concerned, I'm at the kind of claims desk, so he's about to walk off and just leave me there. I mean, it was appalling, actually, and, and it was one of those situations where someone with some power likes using it, but in the wrong way, not to problem solve, but to just put barriers up and say, No, I'm not doing that.

Simon Minty  19:48  
It is also, what is your backup yourself? And I realized I'm fortunate still, when I was going around Berlin on my own, and I'm going two or three miles away, and I'm like, if my scooter breaks, i. You know, I've got no way to repair it, but I have, I have an option, which is called Uber, and we can bang it in the back, and I can climb into a car that makes me have an immense it's always my backup. Yeah, you don't, you don't have that option of the backup. It is so much more complicated for you. And that bit is the bit that is terrifying, because you want the safety net. You want to know if it goes wrong, what is my safety net? I

Phil Friend  20:23  
think absolutely. And I think you know whenever. So we're going to go up to, you know when, when I go anywhere abroad, like when we go, sorry, let me start this again. My crew, I went on my cruises when Sue and I used to go on cruises I had a wheelchair break in Hawaii. Same issue. Bloody thing just stopped working, but I had my spare chair on the ship, which meant what I got back to the ship. I was then able to and some guy in the Blue Mountains in Australia. So we sailed from Hawaii to various other places, then ended up in Australia. And while we were in Sydney, this guy came from the Blue Mountains in Australia and repaired my chair on Sydney Harbor, and off we went again. So there is a backup with this. The only backup I have is, do you have an accessible van cab? Yeah, because if I can travel in my chair, but you see, when the chair refuses to move, there's only Sue and she can't push me in a wheelchair that weighs 140 kilos. It's impossible things happen. And you're right, there is something very positive about how other human beings see what's going on and try and help. I'm always impressed by that. But this particular event was I only needed the benevolence of someone because this guy was being an absolute dick and would not bend. I knew so it was going to go. I just remembered. So when we got off the plane and I'm in this bloody wheely thing that they're pushing me through baggage and all that, and by some blood, he goes the guy pushing goes by, and he said, What are you doing to this other guy, baggage assistance guy sitting there. He said, There's a woman in a wheelchair back there. Needs to push. He said, I can't do that. Said, What's that? I've got a bad back. I thought, What are you doing in passenger assistance? Your job is to leave people about need to draw things to a close, don't we? Alright? So any listeners? Corner, yes.

Simon Minty  22:18  
Damien Joseph Bridgeman, he's a disabled chap from Barry in Wales, and he we must have posted something. I'm not quite sure it was the show. Sorry, Damien, I kept your comment, but not where from. He said, really think you guys should have a mainstream TV program, and we'd love to be a guest sometime,

Phil Friend  22:37  
well, on our TV program or on the podcast.

Simon Minty  22:39  
I'm not sure. I don't know whether you and me moaning about disability internationally will make a TV show yet, but it's very nice of him. Um, have you got any listeners corner?

Phil Friend  22:53  
I don't think I have. Simon, no, okay, I other than to say I am grateful to everybody. I did post this story about my Malaga thing on other things. And I did get an awful lot of people, yeah, either sympathizing or or then telling me about their their horrific journeys that they've had. And it seems, I mean, we know Sophie and her, you know campaigns, Sophie Morgan's campaigns, it is rife. I'm not the only person that's been through this experience, and won't be the last, sadly,

Simon Minty  23:27  
I know, but my frustration is, this is 2030, years old. We're still weighing on. Yeah, I think social media obviously, we know there's huge difficulties and problems with it, but one of the great things is when you have got a bit of a struggle that post, and just people writing, saying, I'm sorry to hear it. Good support, that can be a lift. I mean, and

Phil Friend  23:48  
my chum who sent through the idea of a train to Malaga, I'm really going to look at that now. That was good advice, and I would like to try it and but we'll see. We'll see.

Simon Minty  23:59  
Okay, want to give a little heads up for next month's guest. Oh, yes, yes, very Celia. Her name is Celia Chartres ARIS. I hope I pronounced that right. Celia, she was named number one in the disability power 100 the Shaw trust list. Is an international disability advocate. I talked about her after the actual event, and I'm delighted that she's going to be our guest. So she's going to be a big hitter. Phil, we need to up our game. Well,

Phil Friend  24:26  
I think the thing I I'll start knitting a red carpet so we can roll it out.

Simon Minty  24:35  
I think a knitted red carpet is probably the most inaccessible thing anyone can. I wonder

Phil Friend  24:39  
if, how, what would be the podcast equivalent of a red carpet? We should have a fanfare. Yeah, that's good. Some audio we could invite. Yeah?

Simon Minty  24:47  
About being number one anyway, let's not make it tacky.

Phil Friend  24:53  
Let's stick to the knitted carpet. Anyway, it's been lovely to see you, Simon. Yeah. I

Simon Minty  24:59  
hope. Listeners, if you stuck to the end, I hope we entertained you as well as informed you and made you a bit miserable, but thank you for listening.

Phil Friend  25:09  
Take care everybody. See you soon.

Announcer  25:11  
This is The Way We Roll presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend. You can email us at mintyandfriend@gmail.com or just search for minty and friend on social media, we're on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, foreign.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai