By James Wood
So this week I finished my job in Sydney and drove back to the airport for my flight home to Melbourne. I returned my hire car and pushed my wheelchair with my bag on my lap and a backpack slung off the back of my wheelchair.
I got to the terminal and headed towards the lift to get me up to the check-in level only to find a barrier in front of the elevator saying that the lift was out of order.
Okay, so I knew there was another lift up the other end of the terminal, which was a fair way to go with luggage in tow. But I had no other option.
When I got to the lift at the other end of the terminal I pushed the button to summon the lift and I waited and waited and waited. Nothing was happening.
Next to the lift there were some escalators and the occasional passenger was going up or down them, but they were unsuitable for a wheelchair.
I asked the next person that came to the escalator if he could check the lift when he got to the next level to see if it was working from there. He said “Sure mate, I’ll check it.”
He headed up the escalator and disappeared for a few minutes only to return to the top of the escalators and lean over the rail and when he saw me he shouted at the top of his voice “The lift is Fkd mate.”
Currently the airport is not operating at full capacity, which is lucky because I guarantee everyone in the airport heard him!
I gave him a thumbs up and then quickly rolled away in case he said it again.
Okay, so I know most of the airports in Australia fairly well, so I knew there was a plan B,C and D.
I headed across to the car park, and through the rental car return area and used the car park lift to get to the second level, I then had to get through the car park and across an air bridge and a road to eventually get to the check-in level.
Kind of ironic that at the bottom of the sign saying ‘Lift out of order’ there was a smaller line saying ‘Sorry for the inconvenience.’
