Air travel is a rigmarole at the best of times. But for most passengers, once the bags are dropped and security queues cleared, it's plain sailing. Quick glass of something.

stroll to the gate, board and settle in. Yet for passengers with disabilities and special needs, even once at the gate, the battle is sometimes only just beginning.

Travel nightmares - lost or damaged wheelchairs, poorly trained airline staff, manhandling and even being made to crawl to the toilets-far outnumber tales of positive experiences. But it's something that TV presenter and disability advocate Sophie Morgan has long been familiar with. "Every disabled person I know has a travel horror story," she says. Morgan has used a wheelchair since a road traffic accident left her paralysed from the chest down in 2003.

"There was an element of disbelief and wanting the world back as I knew it. And that's been something that I've been fighting for." Travel is at the centre of that fight. In 2023, Morgan founded Rights on Flights, a lobby group calling for a complete reset in the way disabled people are treated when travelling. She was prompted to act after her wheelchair was broken on a British Airways flight.

"This isn't a new problem; it's been a problem since the beginning of air travel," she says. "The system as it stands is completely ableist." Morgan now sits on the government's new Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, created late last year with the aim of improving disabled passengers' experience of flying, 'from booking to baggage claim'.

It's being led by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, an 11-time Paralympic gold medallist, and includes representatives from airlines such as Jet2 and British Airways, as well as ABTA, the travel trade association. Airports such as Stansted and Glasgow are also represented on the panel.