S'porean complains wife in wheelchair had hard time getting around Changi Airport

Changi Airport apologised and said they will look into it.

Tanya Ong | January 16, 2019, 03:06 PM

Many can agree that Changi Airport is the best airport in the world.

One Joseph Chia, however, he recently took to Facebook to write about a less-than-positive experience he had at the airport.

More specifically, he was upset that the airport was not wheelchair-friendly.

Changi airport not wheelchair-friendly?

In his Facebook post on Changi Airport's page on Jan. 8, Chia explained that his wife injured her knee during their trip to Japan and had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair.

When they landed in Singapore on Dec. 28, 2018, he and his wife supposedly met with a string of inconveniences.

Airport wheelchair not ideal

When the airplane door opened, he said they had to wait for all the other passengers to leave before a wheelchair was brought over.

This took about 20 minutes, according to Chia.

Because her personal wheelchair was checked in, she had to use the wheelchair provided by the airport.

This wheelchair, according to Chia, looked like "a modified shopping cart":

Photo by Joseph Chia.

According to Chia, the design of this wheelchair was not ideal.

He noted that his wife was unable to wheel herself anywhere, since the wheelchair functioned like a regular airport trolley with the brakes at the back.

The small wheels on the wheelchair also gave Chia a "hard time pushing the cart up the carpeted slope".

He added that he received no help from any airport personnel.

Toilet not well-designed

After collecting his wife's wheelchair at the baggage collection zone, his wife discovered that the wheelchair-accessible toilet was "just a regular toilet with bigger doors".

This meant that Chia could not accompany his wife to assist her.

Furthermore, Chia said that the design of it made it "impossible for a person in a wheelchair to wheel in...then turn around and wheel herself out".

He claimed that his wife even had to "ask the cleaning auntie to flush the toilet for her".

In comparison with Japan

In his post, Chia also drew comparisons to their experience in Japan.

There, he claimed that plenty of washrooms have standalone cubicles for wheelchair access. The toilets also came equipped with auto doors and handle bars.

Even the sinks are designed such that people are able to wash their hands comfortably while seated on a wheelchair, he noted.

Given the facilities they encountered overseas, Chia said that Changi Airport's facilities are in need of much improvement.

He hopes that the email (we presume the post was originally sent as one to the Changi Airport Group) "will get the right person" to do something about it and "result in some meaningful changes".

Changi Airport responds

In response to Chia's post, Changi Airport apologised for the inconvenience caused.

They added that will "feedback to the relevant department and get them to look into this immediately".

Mothership has reached out to Changi Airport for comment and will update the article if they reply.

This is Chia's post:

Top photo via Joseph Chia's Facebook post.