Member

Such is the understandable concern around lithium batteries catching fire that, even though I no longer use a lithium battery wheelchair, I am always asked about my batteries a minimum of four times on each journey. Anyone with any training can look down and see that they are old-fashioned, acid bus batteries that are compliant with IATA’s regulations—and, most importantly, that they must never leave the wheelchair and must go in the hold, not in the cabin. I tell noble Lords this because, nearly two years ago, when I was returning from a Romanian conference on encouraging more disabled people into politics, Wizz Air’s ground services manager at Bucharest confused acid batteries and lithium batteries. He refused to come out of his office and look at either my batteries or the photograph of them.