Travelers with disabilities can be denied boarding in Europe if they don't do this

Travelers with disabilities heading to Europe need to be aware that different regulations on the other side of the pond could have an outsize impact on their trip.

“In the E.U., they’re very much in the medical mindset of disability, that this is something to be fixed: you are the problem, not our inclusive procedures,” Jill Moore, a recent KLM passenger and an accessibility professional in her work life, told USA TODAY.

Moore works as an inclusive play specialist for Landscape Structures, a Minnesota-based playground manufacturer. “Basically I travel the country to help and educate communities to create inclusive playgrounds and connect people with disabilities to the design process,” is how she described her job. But on a recent trip, she and her husband experienced firsthand how the European framework can be difficult to deal with.

She and her husband are both wheelchair users, and had flown to Barcelona via Amsterdam for a friend’s wedding in July. On the way out from Minneapolis on KLM, they encountered no problems, but trouble started soon after check-in on the way home on July 8.

“We truly felt accommodated and it was awesome on the way over and on the way back, it was so opposite of that and jarring, and based on the way they had treated us before, we had zero frame of reference for it,” Moore said. But when they checked in for their first flight to get home, they were turned away.

“KLM came back and said we’re not able to fly unless we have an able-bodied chaperone,” Moore said. Although Moore said she and her husband were both perfectly capable of taking care of themselves on the flight, they were denied boarding because of their visible disabilities.

KLM confirmed to USA TODAY that E.U. regulations differ from those in the U.S., but did not comment on Moore’s case specifically.

“The USA Department of Transportation rules for accepting passengers with disabilities differ on some points from those of the European Union. Under E.U. law, passengers are required to give 48 hours advanced notification for Special Service requests,” the airline said in a statement. “DOT rules apply to direct flights to and from the U.S.A. only and not to connection flights within Europe, so for those, advanced notification is required.”

Because Moore was fully accommodated on the way to Europe, she assumed there would be no problems on the trip back. Instead, the gate agent told her and her husband that there was no way to safely transport her and her husband on the way back, and they wound up missing their flight.

Ultimately, because Moore had booked the tickets through Delta, she contacted the U.S. airline, which was able to help her and her husband get rebooked.

“The managers who were helping us with Delta, they were calling the KLM offices saying ‘you carried us all the way over there, even if it is a policy, it was a fluke.’ We shouldn’t have been on the first flight if we were going to encounter this on the second flight,” she said.

Moore said Delta was helpful in rebooking her and her husband. They wound up flying home via Madrid and New York on Delta, but first had to make their way to Madrid from Barcelona, which came with its own hiccups.

“They had to book us a seat on an Air Europa flight to Madrid, who also nearly didn’t let us fly for the same reasons,” Moore said.

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Although the couple eventually made it home, she said the experience was totally dehumanizing.

“Someone made a choice about our abilities and what we could and couldn't do without asking us or speaking to us and they were prepared to leave us there after having brought us to Spain,” Moore said. “We both lead completely independent lives, both travel extremely frequently, and are fully capable of advocating for ourselves. No one ever asked. They just made an assumption.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: European airlines may require disabled travelers to have chaperones.