Air travel is one of the few places where a wheelchair user’s equipment, body, and support system all get handed over to strangers at once. For Californians who receive In-Home Supportive Services, there is a second layer most travel guides never mention: your IHSS case is tied to California residency, and your provider’s paycheck is tied to hours actually worked. A trip you did not report can put both at risk.
This article covers what to tell your county before you book, whether your provider can be paid while traveling with you, and what airlines currently owe you if your wheelchair is damaged. Where the rules are unsettled or applied differently county to county, we say so rather than guessing.
At a glance
- Give your county prior notice. Written notice before you leave California keeps IHSS running without interruption.
- Your provider cannot bill for time you are not home. If they stay behind, expect their hours to go on leave.
- Ask about the travel pay rate in writing. State guidance says an out-of-state provider is paid at the county's lowest base rate. Counties apply this inconsistently.
- IHSS is not a travel benefit. No airfare, hotels, meals, baggage fees, or mileage — for you or your provider.
- Airlines must repair or replace a damaged chair at their own cost and provide a loaner while you wait.
- Photograph your chair before you hand it over. The rule that presumed airline fault is paused through at least December 31, 2026.
Before you book, tell your county
The single most protective step is also the easiest one: give your county IHSS office notice before you leave California.
Under long-standing state guidance issued after the court case Jackson v. McMahon, if you give the county prior notice of a temporary absence from California, your IHSS continues without interruption. There is no trip-length cap attached to that prior-notice rule.
If you leave without notice, different thresholds apply:
- If your absence exceeds — or is expected to exceed — 30 days, the county must contact you.
- IHSS must be discontinued if the county finds you have established residency in another state, or that you do not intend to return to California.
- IHSS must also be discontinued if you remain out of state more than 60 days without good cause. Illness is named in the guidance as an example of good cause.
- IHSS must be continued if you have not established out-of-state residency and you intend to return, or if you are out more than 60 days but have established good cause.
If your services continue while you are away, your authorized hours stay at their pre-trip level until the county reassesses, and you must keep submitting timesheets on schedule.
This guidance is nearly 40 years old
The guidance above comes from All-County Letter 86-34, issued in 1986. It remains the clearest written statement of the rule and is still cited by legal-aid advocates, but it predates the shift of nearly all IHSS enrollment into the Medi-Cal-funded Personal Care Services Program.
Medi-Cal residency rules also apply to your case, and a 60-day absence can trigger a presumption that you are no longer a California resident.
Ask your county worker to confirm in writing how both sets of rules apply to your trip.What to put in writing
- Contact your social worker firstReach your county IHSS worker before you book, not after.
- State the specificsDeparture date, return date, destination, and that you intend to return to California.
- Say who is travelingWhether your provider is coming with you or staying behind.
- Get it in writingAsk for the answer by email or letter and keep it. Verbal approval is hard to rely on later.
- Flag long trips earlyIf the trip may run past 60 days, explain the reason at the outset rather than after the fact.
Whether your provider gets paid while you travel
This is where readers most often get a costly surprise, and where county practice varies most.
Your provider cannot bill for time you are not there
A provider cannot be paid for services at your home while you are away. Hours are paid for authorized services actually performed for you. If your provider stays behind, expect their hours to be placed on leave for the duration of your trip.
If your provider travels with you
If your provider goes with you and continues performing your authorized services, hours may continue — but this is precisely the question to settle with your county worker in advance. Counties handle it differently, and the answer can depend on where you are going and for how long.
Your provider may be paid less while traveling with you
ACL 86-34 states that a recipient’s out-of-state individual provider is reimbursed at the county’s lowest current IP base rate — meaning your provider could be paid less than their usual wage while traveling with you.
That provision dates to 1986 and predates the county-by-county collective bargaining that now sets IHSS wages. We could not confirm how, or whether, counties apply it today.
Do not assume either way; ask your county to state the travel rate in writing before you book.What IHSS does not pay for
IHSS pays for authorized service hours. It is not a travel benefit. It does not cover:
IHSS may pay for
- Authorized service hours your provider actually works for you
- Accompaniment to medical appointments
- Certain wait time at medical appointments (since 2016)
- Continued hours at your pre-trip level while you are temporarily absent, if the county approved the trip
IHSS does not pay for
- Your airfare or your provider's airfare
- Hotels, meals, or baggage fees for either of you
- Mileage or fuel
- A personal care attendant's ticket that the airline did not require
- Any hours while you are away and your provider stayed behind
IHSS does cover accompaniment to medical appointments as an authorized service, and since 2016 providers can be paid for certain wait time at appointments. If your trip is for out-of-area medical care, raise that specifically — it is treated differently from a vacation.
What the airline owes you
Federal rules under the Air Carrier Access Act apply to every U.S. airline. Some obligations were expanded by a rule that took effect in January 2025; four narrow pieces of that rule are currently paused while the Department of Transportation reconsiders them. The protections below are the ones in force as of August 2026.
Getting your chair on the plane
- An airline cannot require advance notice simply because you are disabled.
- It may require up to 48 hours’ notice and one-hour-early check-in for a power wheelchair on an aircraft with fewer than 60 seats.
- If a battery must be removed, the airline provides the hazardous-materials packaging.
- Your wheelchair does not count against your baggage allowance and there is no charge to transport it.
If your chair is damaged, lost, or delayed
- The airline must notify you in writing, in an accessible format, as soon as it knows your device was mishandled — including your right to file a claim, choose your own repair vendor, get a loaner, and reach a Complaints Resolution Official.
- A delayed chair must reach you within 24 hours of your arrival on a domestic flight, delivered to your home or hotel if you prefer over airport pickup.
- The airline pays the cost of repair or replacement with a device of equivalent or greater function and safety. You may use the airline’s process or your own preferred vendor, and the airline pays either way.
- The airline must provide and pay for a loaner chair while yours is repaired or replaced. If the loaner does not meet your needs and you find a better one, the airline must reimburse you within 30 days.
- The airline must reimburse ground transportation costs you incurred because your chair was delayed.
One piece of this rule is on hold
The provision creating a rebuttable presumption that the airline is at fault when a chair comes back damaged — 14 CFR 382.130(a) — is under a DOT enforcement pause through at least December 31, 2026, along with three other provisions.
The repair, replacement, loaner, 24-hour delivery, and reimbursement obligations above are not paused and remain enforceable.
The practical difference is the burden of proof: photograph your chair from several angles at the gate before you hand it over, and again the moment you get it back.Bringing your provider, and what staff will not do
Federal rules draw a sharp line here, and it matters more for IHSS recipients than for almost anyone else.
- An airline cannot require you to travel with another person as a condition of flying, except in narrow safety categories.
- If the airline decides you need a safety assistant over your own assessment that you can fly alone, it cannot charge for that person’s seat.
- If you choose to bring a personal care attendant the airline did not require, you pay for the ticket. IHSS does not cover it.
- Needing help eating or using the lavatory is not a valid reason for an airline to require a companion — and airline personnel are not required to provide those services.
That last point is the one to plan around. On a flight of any length, the help you rely on at home is help no one on board is obligated to give.
If something goes wrong at the airport
Every airline must have a Complaints Resolution Official available in person at the airport or by phone. If the CRO agrees a violation occurred, they must give you a written summary of the facts and what the airline proposes to do — in person if possible, otherwise within 30 days. Ask for the CRO by name for the position; frontline staff are not always forthcoming that one exists.
How often this actually happens
U.S. airlines carried more than 900,000 wheelchairs and scooters on domestic flights in 2025. Roughly 1.1 percent were mishandled — lost, damaged, delayed, or pilfered — which works out to about one in every ninety devices. The rate has fallen for several years running; it was about 1.26 percent in 2024.
Performance varies widely by carrier. Delta reported the lowest mishandling rate at 0.43 percent. JetBlue reported the highest among major carriers at 1.44 percent, with Frontier a fraction behind. United was one of the few carriers to get worse year over year.
About these numbers
These figures come from airline reports to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, published in DOT’s Air Travel Consumer Report. We were unable to extract the wheelchair table directly from DOT’s February 2026 PDF and are relying on WheelchairTravel.org’s published analysis of that report for the carrier-by-carrier rates. Treat the individual airline numbers as reliable but secondhand.
Separately, DOT’s 2025 disability complaint data has not been released, because the department is migrating to a new complaint system — so complaint volume, arguably the better measure of how passengers are treated, is currently unavailable.
No airline will let you stay in your own chair
Every wheelchair user flying in the United States today transfers out of their own chair and into an aircraft seat. The chair goes in the cargo hold. There is no aircraft in U.S. commercial service certified to let a passenger remain seated in a personal wheelchair.
The 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act directed work toward changing that, including research on in-cabin wheelchair securement and a feasibility study on dedicated wheelchair spaces. Manufacturers are building prototypes. In March 2026, an Airbus employee who uses a wheelchair sat in his own chair, secured to the floor, during the cruise phase of a test flight — the first time that has happened. The chair was empty for taxi, takeoff, and landing, and the aircraft was a test plane, not a commercial flight.
Airbus has said it is targeting 2032 for a first delivery to an airline customer. That is the first firm date any manufacturer has put forward, and it is six years out. Competing systems from Collins Aerospace and Delta Flight Products have not yet flown.
A checklist before you fly
Before you fly
- Six weeks outNotify your county IHSS worker in writing and get the answer in writing.
- Six weeks outConfirm whether your provider's hours continue, and at what rate, if they travel with you.
- At bookingTell the airline you are traveling with a wheelchair. Give the make, model, weight, dimensions, and battery type. Ask whether your aircraft has fewer than 60 seats.
- One week outPrint your chair's disassembly and handling instructions and tape them to the frame.
- Day of travelPhotograph your chair from every angle with the date visible, and again at the gate before handing it over.
- On arrivalInspect the chair before leaving the airport. Report damage immediately and ask for the Complaints Resolution Official.
- ThroughoutKeep submitting timesheets on schedule if your services are continuing.
Where to get help
If your county gives you an answer you think is wrong, or an airline refuses what the rules require, these are the places to go.
- Your county IHSS officeFirst stop for anything about hours, travel approval, and provider pay. Ask for answers in writing.
- IHSS state hearingYou can request a state hearing if your hours are reduced or your services are discontinued. Deadlines are short — act as soon as you get the notice.
- Disability Rights CaliforniaFree legal assistance and the IHSS Advocates Manual. Read the manual
- DOT Aviation Consumer ProtectionFile a disability complaint against an airline. transportation.gov/airconsumer
Sources
- CDSS All-County Letter 86-34 (Jackson v. McMahon)Prior-notice rule, the 30-day contact trigger and 60-day good-cause threshold, continuation of authorized hours, the out-of-state IP base rate, and the timesheet requirement.
- 14 CFR 382.130 — Handling requirements and mishandling obligations (eCFR)Written notification of rights, 24-hour delivery of delayed devices, repair or replacement at airline cost, choice of preferred vendor, loaner wheelchairs, and ground transportation reimbursement.
- DOT notification of enforcement discretion, 90 FR 46751 (Sept. 30, 2025)Identifies the four paused provisions — 382.130(a), 382.125(e), 382.132, and 382.141(a)(6) — and the December 31, 2026 date.
- 14 CFR 382.29 — Safety assistants (Cornell LII)Airlines cannot require a companion except in narrow categories, cannot charge for a required safety assistant, may charge for an attendant you choose, and are not required to provide personal care services.
- February 2026 Air Travel Consumer Report (DOT, PDF)Source report for full-year 2025 mishandled wheelchair and scooter data.
- WheelchairTravel.org — Ranking U.S. Airlines by Wheelchair Damage (2026)Carrier-by-carrier mishandling rates for 2025 and the note that DOT disability complaint data is unpublished pending the ACERS migration.
- WheelchairTravel.org — Airbus Wheelchair Securement System Becomes First to FlyThe March 2026 Airbus test flight, the conditions of that test, and the 2032 target date for first delivery to an airline customer.
- DOT Air Travel Consumer Reports (index)Ongoing monthly mishandling statistics.
- CDSS Manual of Policies and Procedures, Division 30, Chapter 30-700 (PDF)IHSS program definitions, service authorization, and individual provider compensation.
- Disability Rights California — IHSS Advocates ManualBackground on IHSS eligibility, provider payment rules, and county practice.
CDSS is the primary authority on all IHSS questions here, and DOT on all air travel questions. Where county guidance and the statute differ, the statute governs.
