In 2018, Anne Wafula Strike, a British Paralympic wheelchair racer, was on an airplane to London Stansted Airport, but after the aircraft landed, she had to wait 45 minutes before airport personnel arrived to help her off the aircraft.  

“That’s the time you start to think, ‘I wish I could just walk like them and get my luggage and walk off the plane,’” Wafula Strike, who lost the use of her legs from childhood polio, told reporters. “But I have to rely on assistance to get off. It was bad.”

Glenn Johnson listened to this story on BBC radio from his office in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and he realized how unnecessary it was for anyone to endure that type of experience – let alone someone who had represented her adopted country, the United Kingdom, in the Paralympics. 

“It kind of moved me to tears,” Johnson recalled.

But he was in position to see that those experiences don’t happen again.

A new frontier for Collins

Johnson is a senior fellow of industrial design at Collins Aerospace, and it occurred to him that a Collins radio was used by Neil Armstrong when he took his first step on the moon and proclaimed, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Johnson thought to himself: “If we can put someone on the moon with this radio, we can fix this problem.”

Since then, Johnson has worked to develop an onboard wheelchair solution so that passengers with reduced mobility can experience air travel that is more equivalent to that of an able-bodied passenger. In addition to engineers and designers at Collins, Johnson has worked with researchers at several universities while also consulting with other aerospace manufacturers, airlines, and advocates for people with disabilities.        

Johnson had a question for all who were involved in this project: “If we are going to fix the problem, how would we do it?”

Complex challenges, humbling experiences

To understand the problem, let’s imagine an airline passenger named Sally who uses a wheelchair. Sally must surrender her wheelchair at the gate, be lifted into another chair by airport personnel, and then be escorted down the aisle of the aircraft. She is then lifted out of that chair and placed in her airline seat, which, depending on her physical capabilities, may not be comfortable. She will not be able to move from her seat during the flight, which means she cannot use the lavatory, nor will she be able to move if someone in her row needs to get out. When the flight lands, Sally must wait for the plane to empty and then have airport staff once again put her in a rolling chair, help her down the aisle, and reunite her with her wheelchair.

The additional time required in this process is only one inconvenience (and as Wafula Strike discovered, the added time can be more than a minor inconvenience.) The experience itself, being lifted from chair to chair to chair, can be humbling, even degrading – and can put the passenger at risk physically.

The costs add up

What’s more, the wheelchairs themselves are expensive, costing up to $40,000, and are easily damaged during the check-in, handling, and stowage processes. In 2022, the 10 largest U.S. airlines lost, damaged, or destroyed more than 11,000 wheelchairs or scooters, according to the Department of Transportation.

The airlines are required to reimburse passengers for wheelchairs that have been damaged or lost, so the current system is costly for the industry as well.

Flying with ease, comfort, and dignity

Collins’ goal is straightforward: to allow wheelchair passengers to stay in their own wheelchair while on the plane. That would make the boarding and deplaning of the aircraft safer and easier while also making the flight itself more comfortable. It would also eliminate the risk of damage to the wheelchair in cargo.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that keeping airline passengers with disabilities in their own wheelchairs is “the Holy Grail” for these travelers.

Finding a solution had one obvious challenge: If you’re not going to put the passenger in an existing airline seat, where will you put that passenger – and his or her wheelchair? Airlines want to maintain existing seating capacity to maximize yield when a wheelchair solution is not in use.

A solution found in a closet

What Johnson and his team discovered was that many narrowbody aircraft have a closet at the front of the cabin, which is typically used as storage for the crew. That closet could be converted into open space for a wheelchair, and once that space is available, restraint systems could be installed to secure the chair and the passenger.

Collins, with its expertise in cabin interior monuments and integration, set out to create that solution.

This past May, six years after Johnson began working on this project, Collins unveiled its prototype for wheelchair travel at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany. The prototype, which was displayed in a Boeing 737 aircraft mockup, accommodates about 70 percent of all wheelchairs today (most WC19 and ISO 7176-19 certified powered-wheelchair devices).

Collins recently unveiled a prototype that would allow passengers with reduced mobility to remain in their wheelchairs during flight.

Successful testing

The prototype does not infringe on space accommodated to other passengers and removes the need for airport personnel to transport these passengers into the aircraft. In recent tests at the National Institute of Aviation Research, the boarding process with this solution was shown to be similar to the average ground transportation experience, harmonizing the air travel experience with the typical accommodations found in other modes of transportation. 

The prototype also incorporates an integrated restraint system with belt attachments, securing both wheelchair and passenger – a system found in other public transportation, which will facilitate customer use.

Finally, the prototype relieves airlines of the hassles and potential liabilities of transporting wheelchairs in cargo.

In short, it meets all the requirements to ensure safe and dignified air travel for these passengers.

An overdue outcome

The public – in the United States and in countries across the globe – has become more sensitive to the needs of travelers of all abilities. Collins’ solution still needs regulatory approval and ultimately needs to be adopted by the airlines, but all stakeholders recognize that this outcome is long overdue and, in its own way, will be a giant leap forward.