Should India become a DIY society? The airport wheelchair debate

Wheelchair passengers are a common sight in India. A stranger to this country could be forgiven for thinking India is unusually full of people unable to walk. And truth be told, life in India is still such that flight-affording types can get used to not exerting their two legs much. Domestic helps do chores, groceries, medicines and other shopping can be done online or by obliging shop owners, plumbers, electricians, etc. are affordable. So why walk at airports?

With that in mind it was not surprising to note that there were 14 wheelchair passengers on my late afternoon flight from Kolkata to Delhi this week. And no one in India travels alone, so each such passenger was accompanied by two or three family members. Thus, in all, around 50 people obtained priority boarding. Curiosity made me take a keen look at those 14. Admittedly, most did not look like they would be able to make the long walk at Delhi's T3.

A Union minister and a retired judge were also on my flight. And it docked at faraway Gate 52. Amusingly, an electric golf cart drew up with superb timing just as the honourable former judge stepped off the aerobridge on to the concourse. He hopped on and sped off; the minister walked. Along with the rest of us, I might add, as nary another buggy appeared. Interminable airports may indeed spur wheelchair demand, not lazy Indians. But what is the solution?


Moving walkways - travelators - are there at most modern airports with runway-length concourses, but they still entail a considerable amount of walking. Those who choose to stand still and let a travelator carry them at its own pace are usually the target of impatiently hissed "Excuse me!" exhortations at the very least. There has to be a way to get more Indians, lazy or just pretending to be, to their aircraft without the wheelchair-passenger-attendant-family combo deal.

Two words: more golf carts. Such group transportation may make redundant some of the staffers who push passengers from check-in to aircraft, as then wheelchairs would only be needed to ferry the genuinely incapacitated from departure gates to plane seats. Yet, there are only enough buggies for important people at airports, never for those passengers who are otherwise perfectly fine but simply cannot walk very long distances and hence sheepishly ask for wheelchairs.

The internet cites passenger safety issues as the reason: too many buggies on concourses may cause congestion and accidents. But that is resolved by allocating golf carts only for the farthest gates and by designing airports to include dedicated lanes for them. Carts parked with no drivers around are a common sight at Indian airports even though they (including at Delhi) promise "24/7 free service" for certain categories including senior citizens and pregnant women.

"They are being charged" is the invariable answer whenever I ask why buggies are standing idle while passengers are trudging past. True, old fashioned lead-acid batteries may need up to 10 hours to fully recharge; lithium-ion ones take 2 to 5 hours. Either way, there should be enough carts available for service at any given time. All of them cannot be charging at the same time: that is, just when most passengers need them, especially for tiring late night arrivals.

The long-term solution, of course, would be to make Indians change their habits and walk more, staying limber well into their 80s as they do in the West. That, of course, would necessitate India becoming that kind of do-it-yourself society, where all except the really rich have to stay mobile to do chores as all services are prohibitively expensive. Is that change worth it, or are wheelchair jams at airports a small price to pay to preserve our other comforts?