US airlines have lost or damaged more than 15,000 wheelchairs since late 2018

America's largest airlines have lost or damaged at least 15,425 wheelchairs or scooters since they were required to start reporting those numbers to the government at the end of 2018. Those figures represent nearly 1.5% of all such mobility devices loaded as cargo – and would be higher if the pandemic had not kept travellers on the ground for so much of 2020. In 2019, the first full year of reporting, 10,548 wheelchairs or scooters were lost, damaged, delayed or stolen in the US. That amounts to roughly 29 a day. That number plummeted to 3464 in 2020, or about 9.5 a day. In the first quarter of this year, passengers reported that 712 devices, or nearly eight a day, were mishandled. John Morris, founder of the accessible travel site Wheelchair Travel, said his own wheelchair has been damaged frequently during plane trips. He said he believes the numbers reported monthly as part of the Department of Transportation's Air Travel Consumer Report do not reflect reality. “Just in my own experience, it approaches 50% of trips,” he said during an interview Friday after getting off a flight. That interview was slightly delayed after he had to file a claim reporting damage to his chair during Friday's flight. The most recent damage was “fairly minor,” Morris said, but has been significant before – from damaged wheels to chairs that were dropped and totalled. Airlines have to repair or replace wheelchairs that they damage. Repairs can take weeks, a month or more.<br/>