Flying can be a depressing experience at the best of times. When you have disabilities, however, it can feel more like an unpleasant medical procedure.

Take the experience of Frank Gardner, the BBC’s security correspondent, on a recent easyJet flight. Gardner, who was left disabled after a terrorist incident in Saudi Arabia, took to Twitter to highlight how he had been left stranded on a plane after it had landed at Gatwick. The staff who were supposed to assist passengers with disabilities simply failed to turn up.

It isn’t the first time it has happened to the journalist, whose role makes him a regular flier. In fact he later told the BBC that “it happens so bloody often, it’s just really tedious”. He’d have good cause to use a rather stronger expletive. Such behaviour is simply unacceptable – but it is far from uncommon.

Take the Paralympian turned cross bench peer Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. She was once left stranded on a plane in Dubai while flying back from the IPC World Championships in New Zealand. There was only one wheelchair at the airport, and 34 athletes with disabilities landing. Their own conveyances had been stored in the hold, standard (bad) practise for those with mobility impairments. Imagine having your legs removed before boarding the plane and you get the picture.

She has also highlighted the rough treatment frequently meted out to her chair by baggage staff. Friends of mine have talked to me about similar experiences.

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It isn’t just planes, though. Last week I highlighted the case of Anne Wafula Strike, a Paralympian like Baroness Grey-Thompson, who courageously went public with an even more unpleasant experience on a train that didn’t contain a disabled toilet.

Now the publicity weapon can be a powerful one when wielded by people with public profiles, as the above cases demonstrate. Gardner pinned the blame for his plight on OCS Assist, part of an outsourcing company most people probably won’t have heard of before. It’s corporate moniker has now arguably been exposed as a misnomer. Gardner also criticised the carrier, easyJet.

The two companies, along with Gatwick Airport, were quick to say they had launched an investigation aimed at preventing a repeat occurrence. An investigation is also what CrossCountry trains promised Wafula Strike. But that is the very least all concerned could – and should – have done.

What happened to Gardner, Wafula Strike and Baroness Thompson shouldn’t have happened in the first place. What happens to disabled travellers every day, because these are by no means isolated incidents, should not happen. But it does. Again and again.

While I’d encourage anyone experiencing the sort of poor treatment Gardner and the others have talked about to follow their example and use social media to publicise it, it seems to me that something more is required. The very fact that these incidents keep coming to light speaks volumes about the attitudes of the companies concerned and about their priorities.

Just to make clear, I’m absolutely not accusing them of intentionally discriminating against disabled customers. But the trouble with sins of omission is that the effect on those on the receiving end is basically the same as the effect of sins of commission. The unnecessary indignity is still felt. An unpleasant reality is still underlined: people with disabilities are at the back of the metaphorical bus. Or train. Or plane.

There is a way of changing this. If there’s one thing that bothers a company more than having its hallowed brand publicly trashed, it’s getting hit in the pocket.

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Show all 7 1 /7 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Closing Remploy factories The Work and Pensions Secretary called time on Britain’s system of Remploy factories, which provided subsidised and sheltered employment to disabled people. People employed at the factories protested against their closure and said they provided gainful work. “Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?” Mr Duncan Smith said at the time, defending the decision. “I promise you this is better.” The Remploy organisation was privatised and sold to American workfare provider Maximus, with the majority of the organisation’s factories closed. The future of the remaining sites is unclear 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Scrapping the Independent Living Fund The £320m Independent Living Fund was established in 1988 to give financial support to people with disabilities. It was scrapped on July 1 2015, with 18,000 often severely disabled people losing out by an average of £300 a week. The money was generally used to help pay for carers so people could live in communities rather than institutions. Councils will get a boost in funding to compensate but it will not cover the whole cost of the fund. This new cash also doesn’t have to be spent on the disabled 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Cut payments for the disabled Access To Work scheme Iain Duncan Smith is bringing forward a policy that will reduce payments to some disabled people from a scheme designed to help them into work. The £108m scheme, which helps 35,540 people, will be capped on a per-used basis, potentially hitting those with the more serious disabilities who currently receive the most help. The single biggest users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and hearing. The cut will come in from October 2015. The charity Disability UK says the scheme actually makes the Government money because the people who gain access to work tend pay tax that more than covers its cost. The DWP does not describe the reduction as a “cut” and says it will be able to spread the money more thinly and cover more people 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Cut Employment and Support Allowance The latest Budget included a £30 a week cut in disability benefits for some new claimants of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The Government says it is equalising the rate of disability benefits with Jobseekers Allowance because giving disabled people more help is a “perverse incentive”. The people affected by this cut are those assessed as having a limited capability for work but as being capable of some “work-related activity”. A group of prominent Catholics wrote to Mr Duncan Smith to say there was “no justification” for this cut. Mental health charity Mind, said the cut was “insulting and misguided” 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Risk homelessness with a sharp increase disability benefit sanctions Official figures in the first quarter of 2014 found a huge increase in sanctions against people reliant on ESA sickness benefit. The 15,955 sanctions were handed out in that period compared to 3,574 in the same period the year before, 2013 – a 4.5 times increase. The homelessness charity Crisis warned at the time that the sharp rise in temporary benefit cuts was “cruel and can leave people utterly destitute – without money even for food and at severe risk of homelessness”. “It is difficult to see how they are meant to help people prepare for work,” Matt Downie, director of policy at the charity added 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Sending sick people to work because of broken fitness to work tests In 2012 a government advisor appointed to review the Government’s Work Capability Assessment said the tests causing suffering by sending sick people back to work inappropriately. “There are certainly areas where it's still not working and I am sorry there are people going through a system which I think still needs improvement,” Professor Malcolm Harrington concluded. The tests are said to have improved since then, but as recently as this summer they are still coming in for criticism. In June the British Psychological Society said there was “now significant body of evidence that the WCA is failing to assess people’s fitness for work accurately and appropriately”. It called for a full overhaul of the way the tests are carried out. The WCA appeals system has also been fraught with controversy with a very high rate of overturns and delays lasting months and blamed for hardship 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people The bedroom tax The Government’s benefit cut for people who it says are “under-occupying” their homes disproportionately affects disabled people. Statistics released last year show that around two-thirds of those affected by the under-occupancy penalty, widely known as the ‘bedroom tax’, are disabled. There have been a number of high profile cases of disabled people being moved out of specially adapted homes by the policy. In one case publicised by the Sunday People last week, a 48 year old man with cerebral palsy was forced to bathe in a paddling pool after the tax moved him out of his home with a walk-in shower. The Government says it has provided councils with a discretionary fund to help reduce the policy’s impact on disabled people, but cases continue to arise

What if the operators of planes, boats, buses and trains were forced to, in the first instance, refund anyone with disabilities suffering an unnecessary indignity on one of their vehicles, plus a small additional sum to cover any incidental costs incurred as a result.

And what if a regulator were required to monitor the occurrence of such incidents, and empowered, and required, to fine any company responsible for too many. I’d imagine that it wouldn’t be too long before disabled people were treated with a little more respect than they receive at the moment. Companies like easyJet, OCS and CrossCountry would be forced to shake up their procedures and especially their priorities.They might also have to hire some more staff. Just a thought.