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Carpatair
Powered chairs need the airline’s prior approval · carried free · 72 h notice.
- Advance notice
- 72hours before departure
- Powered wheelchair
- Conditional
- Lithium, battery installed
- Not published
- Cost to carry
- Free
Wet-lease / ACMI operator. Carpatair usually flies aircraft and crew on behalf of other airlines. If your ticket says another airline, that airline’s wheelchair policy governs your booking — but the aircraft’s physical hold limits are this operator’s.
Who to contact
Transcribed from the airline’s own pages, exactly as it labels them.
- PhoneRomania — Carpatair head office switchboard (no dedicated accessibility or disability desk is published)
- PhoneRomania — Carpatair head office / Customer service line (the number printed against customer.service@carpatair.com)
- PhoneRomania — complaints fax, named in General Conditions of Carriage Art. 11 (fax, not a voice line)
- EmailCustomer service — the only published address for a passenger to reach Carpatair directly; also the complaints address named in General Conditions of Carriage Art. 11
- EmailCharter sales — the route by which a charter customer or tour operator arranges assistance and on-board services
- EmailACMI / wet-lease sales (airline-to-airline; not a passenger channel)
- EmailOffice — data-protection / GDPR requests only
- Online form
There is no accessibility or disability desk, no TTY/text relay, no WhatsApp and no online assistance-request form. Carpatair sells no seats to the public — the Baggage rules page says "our flight service is delivered to you through intermediaries" and tells you to "contact your group leader or travel agent" — so in practice the assistance request goes to the tour operator, broker or lessee airline that sold the seat, and Carpatair's own e-mail (customer.service@carpatair.com) is the fallback. For enforcement of EC 261/2004 in Romania, Carpatair points passengers to the National Authority for the Consumers' Protection (ANPC), Bulevardul Aviatorilor nr. 72, Bucharest, www.anpc.ro, tel. 0377 755 100; that is a regulator, not an accessibility line, and is recorded here rather than in the phone list to avoid any suggestion that it books assistance.
Read it from the source
- Special categories of passengers — reduced mobility, wheelchairs, 72 h notice (opens in a new tab)
- Health requirements — WCHR / WCHS / WCHC codes and IATA 700 medical clearance (opens in a new tab)
- Baggage rules — dangerous goods and baggage liability (opens in a new tab)
- General Conditions of Carriage — Art. 2.2 (wet lease: the lessee is the operating carrier) and Art. 4.2 (special assistance by prior arrangement) (opens in a new tab)
Powered wheelchairs & batteries
The part that goes wrong. Battery chemistry and watt-hours decide whether your chair flies, and the rules differ depending on whether the battery can be removed.
Carpatair does not distinguish powered from manual chairs; one rule covers both. "Normally, we can arrange to carry your wheelchair on the flight. Since you need to ask for special permission, please tell us your wheelchair's dimensions, weight and type of battery (spillable batteries – wet-cell, non spillable batteries – dry-cell or gel-cell) at the time of the booking, so that we can plan the transportation and also advise you on the packing conditions which must be complied with." Both the acceptance decision and the packing instructions are made individually at booking.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
Not published, and it is a serious gap. The only battery types Carpatair names for a wheelchair are "spillable batteries – wet-cell" and "non spillable batteries – dry-cell or gel-cell" — lithium is absent. "Lithium batteries" appear only in the generic dangerous-goods list on the Baggage rules page, with no watt-hour figure and no mobility-aid carve-out, in the same list as "Hover boards, self-balancing single or multi-wheels, mini Segways". A lithium-powered chair user must get written agreement before booking.
Not published. Carpatair states no watt-hour cap for a battery that stays installed in the chair; no watt-hour figure of any kind appears on carpatair.com.
Not published. Carpatair never describes removing a wheelchair battery into the cabin, and states no watt-hour cap for one.
Not published. No spare-battery watt-hour figure appears anywhere on carpatair.com, for mobility aids or for consumer electronics.
Not published. Carpatair publishes no spare-battery count of any kind — neither a wheelchair spare allowance nor a general portable-electronics one that could be mistaken for it.
Not published. Carpatair says only that once you declare the battery type at booking it will "advise you on the packing conditions which must be complied with", so whether the battery must come out of the chair is settled individually and is not stated in advance.
"Non spillable batteries – dry-cell or gel-cell" is the other battery family Carpatair names at booking. Acceptance is subject to the same "special permission", and the packing conditions are advised case by case. No terminal-taping, disconnection or secure-attachment requirement is published.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
"Spillable batteries – wet-cell" is one of the two battery families Carpatair names and asks you to declare at booking. Carriage then depends on the "special permission" and on "the packing conditions which must be complied with", advised to you individually. No upright-loading, leak-proof-container, removal or acid-neutraliser rule is published. Note the tension: the Baggage rules page separately lists "wet cell batteries" among corrosive dangerous goods.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 Baggage rules — hand baggage, checked baggage, dangerous goods, baggage liability (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
Not published. No terminal-insulation, disconnection or immobilisation requirement is stated for wheelchair batteries; the packing conditions are communicated to you personally after you declare the battery type at booking.
No battery spec sheet, MSDS, UN 38.3 test summary or manufacturer label requirement is published. The only form on the site is the medical-clearance "Information Sheet for Passengers Requiring Special Assistance – IATA 700", which concerns the passenger's health, not the battery.
No maximum powered-chair size is published. Carpatair asks for the chair's dimensions at booking so it can plan the transportation, and publishes no hold-door or hold-compartment figure for its A319/A320 fleet.
Not published. No weight cap for a powered chair appears anywhere on carpatair.com; the airline asks for the chair's weight at booking and decides case by case.
Same rule as for a manual chair: under the "Delivery at Aircraft tag" definition, wheelchairs taken from you at the aircraft door "are carried in the baggage hold and handed back to you at the aircraft door or in the terminal building, on baggage belt at the time of disembarkation". Return at the door is one of two published outcomes, not a guarantee.
Carpatair's entire powered-wheelchair policy is two sentences plus a battery-type question. Everything a power-chair user actually needs to know — whether the battery must be disconnected, how the chair is secured, whether it fits the hold, what happens if it is damaged — is settled individually at booking with Carpatair or, on a charter or wet-lease flight, with the operator who sold the seat. Get the answer in writing before you travel.
Manual wheelchairs
"Normally, we can arrange to carry your wheelchair on the flight. Since you need to ask for special permission, please tell us your wheelchair's dimensions, weight and type of battery ... at the time of the booking, so that we can plan the transportation." General Conditions of Carriage Art. 4.2 makes acceptance of "incapacitated persons ... or other people requiring special assistance ... subject to express prior arrangement with us" — a case-by-case approval, though Art. 4.2 adds such passengers "shall not be subsequently refused Carriage on the basis of such disability".
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 General Conditions of Carriage (Art. 2.1 charter, Art. 2.2 wet lease, Art. 4.2 special assistance, Art. 5.10.2 assistance dogs, Art. 11 complaints; "Delivery at Aircraft tag" definition) (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
"Carpatair cannot stow the wheelchair in the cabin." No folding-chair-in-cabin option of any kind is offered, and hand baggage is limited to one piece of 5 kg measuring no more than 55 x 40 x 20 cm.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 Baggage rules — hand baggage, checked baggage, dangerous goods, baggage liability (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
No in-cabin wheelchair stowage exists — "Carpatair cannot stow the wheelchair in the cabin" — so no cabin stowage dimensions are published.
No maximum wheelchair size is published. Carpatair asks you to "tell us your wheelchair's dimensions" at booking so it can plan the carriage. The 203 cm (length + width + height) figure on the Baggage rules page is the standard checked-baggage limit, not a stated mobility-aid limit, so it is deliberately not recorded here.
Not published for mobility aids. Carpatair asks for the chair's weight at booking so that it "can plan the transportation", and decides case by case. The only weight figures on the site are ordinary baggage rules — a 20 kg standard checked piece, and any single item over 32 kg being "subject to special transport conditions and has therefore to be pre-notified and confirmed by the airline" — and those are not applied to wheelchairs, which are carried "regardless of free baggage allowance".
The General Conditions of Carriage define a "Delivery at Aircraft tag" as "a document placed on pushchairs/strollers, wheelchairs and other Baggage taken away from you at the door of the aircraft. These items are carried in the baggage hold and handed back to you at the aircraft door or in the terminal building, on baggage belt at the time of disembarkation." Door delivery therefore exists but is not guaranteed — the published alternative is the ordinary baggage belt, and the wheelchair page promises only a loaner chair "from the aircraft to the arrivals hall".
General Conditions of Carriage (Art. 2.1 charter, Art. 2.2 wet lease, Art. 4.2 special assistance, Art. 5.10.2 assistance dogs, Art. 11 complaints; "Delivery at Aircraft tag" definition) (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
Carpatair publishes the three IATA assistance codes it can provide "on any Carpatair flight": WCHR (can climb steps and reach the cabin unaided, needs a chair for the distance across the ramp), WCHS (cannot climb steps but can walk to the cabin seat) and WCHC ("the passenger is completely immobile; requires a wheelchair to/from aircraft and must be carried up/down steps and to/from cabin seat"). Stretcher passengers and complex medical cases are not accepted and are "asked to seek acceptance for transportation with special medical transporters".
Booking & cost
"To allow sufficient time for proper arrangements, Carpatair requests a notification in advance with at least 72 hours prior to the departure, but in any case no later than 24 hours prior to the departure", for meet-and-assist, guidance to and from the aircraft, a wheelchair, a service dog or special care in flight. Carriage of your own wheelchair needs "special permission" asked for at the time of booking. Where medical clearance applies, the IATA 700 sheet must reach Carpatair "at least one day before the departure date" or boarding may be denied.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 Health requirements — WCHR / WCHS / WCHC assistance codes and IATA 700 medical clearance (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
For an airport wheelchair, "please let us know at the time of the booking. We provide this service for you, free of charge." For your own chair: "Since you need to ask for special permission, please tell us your wheelchair's dimensions, weight and type of battery (spillable batteries – wet-cell, non spillable batteries – dry-cell or gel-cell) at the time of the booking, so that we can plan the transportation and also advise you on the packing conditions which must be complied with." Carpatair adds that "our flight service is delivered to you through intermediaries".
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 Baggage rules — hand baggage, checked baggage, dangerous goods, baggage liability (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
"One wheelchair or mobility aid for a passenger will be carried free of charge on our flight, regardless of free baggage allowance." The airport wheelchair service — "from check-in to the boarding gate or from the aircraft to the arrivals hall of your destination" — is also provided "free of charge". No handling, oversize or special-transport fee for a mobility aid is published.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
"One wheelchair or mobility aid for a passenger will be carried free of charge on our flight, regardless of free baggage allowance." Carpatair publishes no allowance for a second device — nothing is said about carrying, for example, both a power chair and a walking frame or shower chair free of charge.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
"The Montreal Convention regarding liability limitations stipulates that CARPATAIR is liable for destruction, loss or damage to Checked or Unchecked Baggage up to 1,131 SDR." Wheelchairs are not excepted, and "If the value of the Passenger's Baggage exceeds the applicable limit of liability, the Passenger should fully insure it before he/she travels." Damage must be complained of in writing "within seven days from the date you received the checked baggage" or "Carpatair can decline any liability".
Liability Limitation — Montreal Convention baggage limit (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 Baggage rules — hand baggage, checked baggage, dangerous goods, baggage liability (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 General Conditions of Carriage (Art. 2.1 charter, Art. 2.2 wet lease, Art. 4.2 special assistance, Art. 5.10.2 assistance dogs, Art. 11 complaints; "Delivery at Aircraft tag" definition) (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
On board
Not published. Carpatair offers the WCHC code — "the passenger is completely immobile; requires a wheelchair to/from aircraft and must be carried up/down steps and to/from cabin seat" — which describes being carried, not an on-board aisle chair, and it separately states that it "cannot stow the wheelchair in the cabin". No aisle chair is mentioned for the A319/A320 fleet.
Not published. Nothing about lavatory access, grab rails or assistance to the toilet appears anywhere on carpatair.com; the fleet is three single-aisle Airbus A319/A320 aircraft.
Carpatair lists WCHC among the services it can provide "on any Carpatair flight": the completely immobile passenger "must be carried up/down steps and to/from cabin seat". It is conditional twice over — General Conditions of Carriage Art. 4.2 makes acceptance "subject to express prior arrangement with us", and the reduced-mobility page states "If you are not capable of taking care of all your physical needs independently, you are requested to travel with a companion who can assist you."
Health requirements — WCHR / WCHS / WCHC assistance codes and IATA 700 medical clearance (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29 General Conditions of Carriage (Art. 2.1 charter, Art. 2.2 wet lease, Art. 4.2 special assistance, Art. 5.10.2 assistance dogs, Art. 11 complaints; "Delivery at Aircraft tag" definition) (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
"When allocating seats to persons with reduced mobility, safety regulations stipulate that passengers with special needs should not be seated at emergency exits or in cross aisles that form part of emergency exit routes." Carpatair adds that under Commission Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 a person with reduced mobility "will not be refused boarding unless the refusal is done to meet the applicable safety requirements, the aircraft type and cabin configuration". Nothing is published about movable armrests, bulkhead seats or companion seating.
Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · read 2026-07-29
Fleet detail. No hold-door or hold-compartment dimensions are published. The fleet is three Airbus narrowbodies — A319-111 YR-ABA (150 seats), A319-112 YR-ABB (150 seats) and A320 YR-ABC (180 seats). On a wet-lease flight these are still Carpatair's own aircraft, so the physical hold constraint remains Carpatair's even where the published passenger policy is the lessee airline's.
Worth knowing
OPERATOR TYPE CORRECTED. The stub said "scheduled_passenger"; Carpatair's own homepage says it is "presently a charter and wet lease airline" and that "From 2014 Carpatair switched its business model to non-scheduled services providing charter services and wet lease capacity operations on demand", and the Our mission and culture page files scheduled flying under "Carpatair Legacy: 1999 to 2013 Scheduled flights and Hub operations". There is no booking engine, no timetable and no destination list on the site, and the Baggage rules page says "our flight service is delivered to you through intermediaries" and "you will be informed by your travel agent, group leader or organizer of your flight on the checked baggage weight and dimension restrictions". Recorded as operator_type "acmi_charter" with passenger_service true — it still carries passengers, just never on seats it sells itself. WHOSE POLICY APPLIES. General Conditions of Carriage Art. 2.2: "If transportation is performed pursuant to a Wet lease agreement, these General Conditions of Carriage do not apply, the Lessee being the operating air carrier." Art. 2.1: on a charter the GCC apply only to the extent incorporated in the charter agreement, and "In case of discrepancies ... the [charter agreement] shall prevail." So on most Carpatair-operated flights the contracting airline's or tour operator's special-assistance policy governs, and the record below is what Carpatair publishes for flights it contracts in its own name. EVERYTHING IS CASE BY CASE. Carpatair publishes no wheelchair size limit, no weight limit, no watt-hour figure, no battery-removal rule and no terminal rule. Its position is that you declare dimensions, weight and battery type at booking and it will then "advise you on the packing conditions which must be complied with". A power-chair user should get that advice in writing. GAPS AND ODDITIES A HUMAN SHOULD RE-CHECK: (1) Lithium is never mentioned for wheelchairs — only wet-cell spillable and dry/gel non-spillable — while "lithium batteries" sit in the generic prohibited/dangerous-goods list; that combination is dangerous for a modern lithium power chair and needs confirming with the airline. (2) Only ONE mobility aid is carried free; Regulation (EC) No 1107/2006 Annex II obliges EU carriers to carry up to two pieces of mobility equipment free, and a site search for "1107" on carpatair.com returns "Nothing Found" — the regulation is cited nowhere, even though it binds a Romanian AOC holder. The regulation is listed in sources as s14 for context only; it backs no value here. (3) The published baggage liability of 1,131 SDR is the pre-2019 Montreal Convention figure (the limit was revised to 1,288 SDR in 2019 and again since), so the page is out of date to the traveller's detriment. (4) The PRM page cites "Regulation (EC) No 216/2018" — no such instrument exists; the EASA basic regulation is (EU) 2018/1139, replacing (EC) 216/2008. A drafting error, but it is the legal basis they quote for refusing boarding. (5) "Carpatair cannot stow the wheelchair in the cabin" is unusually blunt and rules out the folding-chair-in-cabin option some EU carriers offer. (6) Notice is self-contradictory in the traveller's favour: "at least 72 hours ... but in any case no later than 24 hours prior to the departure", i.e. 72 h requested, 24 h the hard floor. (7) Medical clearance on the IATA 700 form, signed and sealed by a doctor, is required for acute or chronic illness and must arrive "at least one day before the departure date" or boarding can be refused; stretcher and complex medical cases are refused outright. (8) The site is English-only — https://www.carpatair.com/ro/ returns 404 and the WordPress page index contains no Romanian pages — so there is no home-language page to cross-check, unusual for a Romanian carrier. (9) No accessibility desk, no TTY/relay, no assistance-request form; assistance at airports "shall be ensured by the handling agents empowered by Carpatair". (10) Assistance dogs are carried free of charge in the cabin over and above the free baggage allowance (GCC Art. 5.10.2), and the PRM page recognises a certified service animal (SVAN, dogs only), even though Carpatair "currently does not transport animals in the cargo hold as checked baggage".
Sources
Every figure above traces to one of these.
- s1 Special categories of passengers — Passengers with reduced mobility / Wheelchairs (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s2 Baggage rules — hand baggage, checked baggage, dangerous goods, baggage liability (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s3 General Conditions of Carriage (Art. 2.1 charter, Art. 2.2 wet lease, Art. 4.2 special assistance, Art. 5.10.2 assistance dogs, Art. 11 complaints; "Delivery at Aircraft tag" definition) (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s4 Liability Limitation — Montreal Convention baggage limit (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s5 Health requirements — WCHR / WCHS / WCHC assistance codes and IATA 700 medical clearance (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s6 Contact (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s7 Customer service — contacts and feedback form (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s8 Home — "presently a charter and wet lease airline"; switched to non-scheduled services from 2014 (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s9 Our mission and culture — "Carpatair Legacy: 1999 to 2013 Scheduled flights and Hub operations" (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s10 ACMI / Wet Leases — capacity solutions to airlines (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s11 Ad-hoc charters and series of charter flights (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s12 Fleet — Airbus A319-111 YR-ABA, A319-112 YR-ABB, A320 YR-ABC (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s13 Information Sheet for Passengers Requiring Special Assistance — IATA 700 (PDF) (opens in a new tab) · official · read 2026-07-29
- s14 Regulation (EC) No 1107/2006 on the rights of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility when travelling by air — the EU baseline binding on a Romanian carrier; consulted for context only, it is cited nowhere on carpatair.com and backs no value in this record (opens in a new tab) · regulator · read 2026-07-29
Record quality
Record status researched · confidence medium · 13 official sources · 8 contacts · 47% of the fields this reference tracks are answered. Newest source read 29 July 2026, the day before this page was built. What these mean.