A day in an ‘aging suit’ shows airport accessibility challenges

I’m old enough to occasionally be addressed as “ma’am,” but young and healthy enough to have no trouble running, if need be, to a far-off gate at an airport and lifting my own carry-on into an overhead bin.

But after walking — no, shuffling — through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport strapped into an odd-looking “age simulation” suit that had me feeling isolated, in the way, and unsure of my footing, I realize my plan to still be traveling the world independently at age 90 — and beyond — may be in jeopardy.

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That is, unless I figure out how to keep my good eyesight, hearing and mobility intact forever (fat chance) and unless airport operators and designers keep the needs of an aging and less-than-able-bodied population in mind.

The good news is that, with the Census Bureau predicting that 20% of U.S. residents will be age 65 or older in 2030 (as opposed to just 13% now), airports — and airlines — are paying attention.

And it’s not just because of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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Groups such as the Chicago-based Open Doors Organization are called on regularly to offer guidance on making airport services and facilities accessible to the 26 million adults with temporary and permanent disabilities who travel each year for business or pleasure and spend more than $17.3 billion on those trips.

And architectural firms with a specialty in aviation, such as Dallas-based Corgan, are asked to ensure that elderly travelers and others who may have limited mobility can easily make their way through airport terminals.

That’s where that “age simulation” suit comes in.

Developed in Germany and also referred to as a GERT (or Gerontological Test suit), the outfit is an assortment of pieces that get attached to different areas of the body to temporarily add impairments.

My outfit included spongy overshoes that made it hard to know when my feet were actually touching the floor; knee and elbow wraps, and a neck brace, to limit movement and simulate joint stiffness; earmuffs to simulate 10 dB hearing loss; and blurred goggles to reduce vision.

In case that wasn’t enough to slow me down on my journey through the airport, Michael Steiner, a senior associate at Corgan, added a heavy padded vest, which brought the outfit’s overall weight to somewhere around 30 pounds.

Suited up and closely escorted (in case I fell or was set upon by airport security or bands of small children) I headed into the public area of the airport to take an elevator and then an escalator to the bag claim area.

Right away, the heavy suit slowed me down and I had to move to the side to let other travelers pass me by.

The blurry goggles made it difficult to see which floor number to push in the elevator. And the spongy shoes made me uncertain of my footing when I tried to step onto and off of the escalator, which created tension not just for me but, when I hesitated, for the people bunched up behind me.

Instead of walking to the bag claim, I trudged, and the distance to get there suddenly seemed really long.

Had there been a full planeload of passengers crowded around the carousel waiting for their bags, I would have had a tough time getting to the front of the crowd to be on the lookout for my suitcase. And, given my molasses-paced walking speed, getting to bag claim area from the airplane ahead of the crowd would have been impossible.

As it was, even with plenty of elbow room to grab my test suitcase off an otherwise empty but moving carousel, the aging suit made it difficult to lean over, grab the bag and pull it up over the lip of the metal wall.

In this age of “If you see something, say something,” here I was in an airport wearing an outfit that made me look like a wounded skier in a bullet-proof vest on her way to Mars, yet no one stepped up to question me or to ask if I needed help.

Perhaps with the decibel-reducing earmuffs and fuzzy goggles I didn’t notice the looks or hear the comments, but overall I felt disoriented, isolated and invisible in that aging suit.

Which was exactly the point of putting on the suit on in the first place, said Corgan’s Michael Steiner,

“An airport is an incredibly chaotic and busy place, even for someone who is perfectly healthy,” he said, “Take away some of the sensory inputs such as sight, hearing and mobility and couple those with a busy environment and you’ll get a different viewpoint of how someone decides to move through the space to get where they need to go.”

Or decides that they won’t bother to try to make their way through the airport at all.

In helping airports and airlines make their facilities more universally accessible, Corgan’s team studies the way “real” people who are elderly or mobility-challenged use an airport, from the size and coloring of signage to transitions between carpet and terrazzo flooring, cart traffic, and the length and layout of check-in lines.

But putting architects and others who actually do the designing — and make the decisions — into the old suit, offers extra insight.

With information gathered from the aging suit and other studies “we can really understand how people use an airport space and then bring that to bear from planning all the way through to the end of a construction project,” said Ross Payton, a principal in Corgan’s Aviation Group, “And we can help make sure the facilities reflect what’s best for the airline, the airport and ultimately for the passenger experience.”

Harriet Baskas is a Seattle-based airports and aviation writer and USA TODAY Travel's "At the Airport" columnist. Follow her at twitter.com/hbaskas.