By AJ Willingham | CNN
Rumeysa Gelgi, the world’s tallest residing lady, lately boarded an airplane from her dwelling nation of Turkey to San Francisco.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t simply any flight. It was Gelgi’s first, and one which highlighted a rising consideration to accessibility.
Gelgi, 25, stands at 7 ft, 0.7 inches tall. Her proportions are a results of Weaver syndrome, a uncommon genetic situation that causes bone overgrowth. She has been a Guinness World Report superstar since her teenagers, and holds information in a number of size-related classes, together with the longest fingers on a residing individual and the longest again on a residing feminine individual.
Gelgi commonly travels to share her story, and makes use of her heat wit to unfold physique positivity on social media. Nevertheless, regardless of her worldwide profile, she had by no means flown on an airplane earlier than. Like many individuals with Weaver syndrome, Gelgi makes use of mobility aids to get round, and an extended flight would require particular lodging for her extraordinary body.
However in September, Gelgi lastly took to the skies. In an Instagram put up a couple of weeks later, she shared images from her journey aboard Turkish Airways, which was made doable after the airways eliminated a number of seats on the aircraft so Gelgi may relaxation comfortably on a stretcher through the 13-hour journey from Istanbul to California.
“A flawless journey from begin to end,” Gelgi mentioned on Instagram, praising Turkish Airways workers and medical personnel for his or her work. Gelgi mentioned that though it was her first aircraft trip, “it definitely received’t be my final.”
In her images, Gelgi seems to get the VIP therapy, conversing with smiling workers aboard the aircraft and having fun with a first-class meal.
Gelgi, who's a pc programmer in addition to a public advocate, says she is spending her time in San Francisco working with Guinness World Data.
CNN has reached out to Turkish Airways and Guinness World Data for remark.
Making air journey extra accessible for everybody
Gelgi’s latest journey highlights a rising consciousness of airline accessibility for folks with bodily variations and disabilities. Traditionally, air journey has been inconvenient at greatest for such vacationers, and, at worst, abusive and painful.
CNN talked to Linda Ristagno, Assistant Director of Exterior Affairs on the Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation, which units world requirements for air journey. Ristagno, who lately obtained the Open Doorways Group’s Incapacity Entry Skilled Award for her work, described what sorts of worldwide and structural efforts are underway to enhance accessibility for all vacationers.
“We're devoted to making sure all passengers can benefit from the freedom of air journey, and we count on requirements [among participating airlines and airports] to be constant so the identical stage of help may be supplied to everybody,” she mentioned.
Ristagno says a latest assembly of the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group (ICAO), a United Nations company, produced a historic decision that may higher enable completely different components of the business to work collectively to enhance accessibility.
“This decision encourages governments to collaborate with airways and incapacity organizations, and all actors, together with vacationers with disabilities, to achieve options,” she mentioned.
One of many greatest priorities this decision will help with is the precept of “common design,” by which accessibility is constructed into the very construction of buildings and mechanisms, moderately than handled as an addition or modification.
Moreover, Ristagno says business teams and state organizations are additionally attempting to enhance infrastructure and procedures across the transport of mobility aids reminiscent of motorized wheelchairs — a specific ache level on the subject of accessible journey.
“The foundation of the challenges airways face within the loading and protected storage of mobility aids is few have been designed with air transport in thoughts,” she explains. “That turns into much more difficult as mobility aids develop in dimension, complexity and weight. There may be danger of damage in transporting them, and danger of damaging the system.”
By wanting on the situation from all angles, air journey teams like IATA, ICAO and taking part events can discover long-term options, together with design enhancements that enable for simpler navigation in airports and on planes, and even better-designed mobility aids.
“There’s an inherent motivation to boost requirements, as these passengers characterize a rising part of the demand for air journey,” Ristagno mentioned. “Additionally, incapacity is a medical time period. However accessibility is a social time period. We need to make certain we're accessible for all.”
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