How Empathy Can Transform the Passenger Experience
From Compliance to True Inclusion
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Last week, I had an Overground staff member who didn’t let me board the train because he was adamant he needed to reach my destination on the phone first, despite the fact that this station has level boarding and I didn’t need assistance at the other end. All I needed was a ramp at his station.
Therefore, I missed the train, which had a knock-on effect on the rest of my journey. I missed the connection, my assistance booking for the connection was void, and I had to rearrange everything again. But the staff member followed procedures! So everyone was happy except me, the customer.
I sometimes find it fascinating when I notice that people can’t imagine how their decisions and attitudes affect disabled people, especially in customer-experience settings. The bias that it doesn’t matter which train disabled people take, they are not busy anyway, is so common, it shows how little empathy there is. In fact, for a non-disabled person, missing a train is an inconvenience; for a disabled person, it can be much more, especially when we rely on assistance or a booked wheelchair space, the only space we can travel on.
Canaries in the Coal Mine
Treating disabled people without empathy is a clear sign that much more is out of order than the experience of disabled people. They will do the same with everyone who needs more consideration and fail in situations where forward-thinking is needed. The level of empathy a company shows towards its customers, especially disabled people, is key to its business success in the long term.
Disabled people are the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to good customer experience. They notice first when a company is run without any empathy or consideration for what its decisions mean to customers. If empathy isn’t expected from its customer-facing staff, it will harm the business if there is a more empathetic competitor.
In transport and aviation, it starts even earlier, before the customer has started travelling. Do we think the minimum time is enough to reach a train or a plane if that suits our planning, because Mo Farah will make it, or is it important to remember that not everyone can run like an Olympian? Won’t that make the experience for everyone better, not just disabled people?
Is it really okay to apply for a derogation when the project manager forgot to plan for seating provisions next to the lift, when this is required by law? Or does it affect older passengers so much that we must make an effort to fix this? It’s an easy-to-answer question if empathy is used.
Empathy is the key to transforming the passenger experience for disabled people. When senior managers and frontline staff approach every decision and interaction with genuine empathy, the result is a service that is not just compliant but truly inclusive. Currently, compliance seems to be a struggle in some businesses, not to mention the requirements under the Equality Act.
Understanding the Real Barriers
Disabled passengers face barriers at every stage of their journey, from inaccessible stations and unreliable assistance to a lack of accessible toilets and negative staff attitudes. Feeling like a nuisance when using services or requesting assistance, or even experiencing discriminatory behaviour, is not uncommon. These are not just operational failures; they are failures of empathy.
How Empathy Drives Better Solutions
When staff and managers actively listen to disabled passengers and seek to understand their lived experiences, they can identify issues that data alone may miss. Complaint numbers alone are not reliable, especially because often disabled people have given up complaining about every single incident. It becomes a full-time job otherwise, especially when you use transport every day.
A culture of empathy encourages staff to treat every request for assistance by anyone with dignity, making passengers feel valued rather than burdensome. That benefits all passengers because it creates a general welcoming culture. Passengers are not a nuisance to the transport network or an airport; they are the reason why the systems run in the first place. Too many people seem to forget about that.
Practical Outcomes of Empathetic Leadership
Empathetic leadership fosters a culture where accessibility is a shared responsibility, not a box-ticking and window-dressing exercise. As long as empathy and an inclusive culture are not expected from the top, they will never happen, or at least be unsustainable. Window dressing will never help inclusion and accessibility.
By involving disabled people in service design and review, managers can co-create solutions that work in real life, not just on paper. Still, accessibility is a responsibility of everyone involved, not just disabled people or the accessibility manager.
Empathy as a Strategic Asset
Empathy is not a soft skill - it is a strategic asset. Companies that embed empathy at every level see higher satisfaction and stronger trust in their business. By making empathy the foundation of policy and practice, senior managers can remove the barriers that exclude disabled people, ensuring that their business serves everyone, every time.
Some interesting links
William Harkness, Boeing’s senior accessibility engineer, wrote an excellent text about “The Disability Tax: How Disabled Professionals Are Quietly Holding Companies Together.” Recommended reading for everyone who employs disabled people or has disabled colleagues.
Another example of the lack of empathy issue, this time at an airport: A woman living with Cerebral Palsy says she was 'discarded like furniture' by airline staff.
Network Rail’s Access for All programme for delivering step-free access at stations is still “heavily oversubscribed” more than 9 months into the new government. £99 million is underspent. 72 projects are not completed.
Something to read
London’s transport watchdog, London TravelWatch, has published its annual review. The report covers “the Euston rush” and improvements to safety, digital exclusion when using the public transport network and personal security.
Something to watch
Ok, I got a bit excited when I saw what Japan is doing with the train-platform-interface gap and step. No idea if it would work in other countries and with our mainline railways or tube system, but these are the desperately needed engineering ideas.
[Video description: Platform edge moves when the train comes in and forms a ramp automatically.]
Some final words
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Who is writing this newsletter?
I’m Christiane Link, and I improve the customer experience in aviation, transport, and travel. I worked as a journalist for over two decades and travelled extensively for business and leisure. I’m a wheelchair user.
Work with me
Whether you're a Customer Service Director, a Head of Customer Experience, a corporate Accessibility manager, a DEI leader, a transport planner, or a disabled employee resource group member, I can help you to make your organisation more inclusive. You can book me for speaking engagements or hire me as a consultant for your accessibility or DEI strategy, communications advice and other related matters. I have worked for airlines, airports, train operators, public transport providers, and companies in other sectors.
If you want to read more from me, follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky or Mastodon. You can also reply to this email if you want to contact me.
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