Can my customer ask for a wheelchair or a special meal when they book a flight on my portal?

Yes, in most cases these requests can be collected during the booking and sent on to the airline with the reservation, so your customer does not have to call anyone separately.

It helps to understand what actually happens to that request. It goes to the airline as a request, not as a confirmed service, and the airline decides whether to accept it. Sometimes it is accepted straight away, sometimes the answer only comes back nearer the departure date, and occasionally it is only settled at the airport. Meal choices also depend on the route and the cabin, and on a short flight where nothing is served there may be no meal option at all.

How much of this reaches the airline depends on the supplier and on the type of connection behind the fare. Some connections pass a full list of assistance and meal requests, others accept only a few common ones, and several low cost carriers handle assistance only through their own website or their own call centre, which means your team would need to arrange it there. Airlines can also ask for assistance requests to be made a certain length of time before departure.

For anything your customer genuinely depends on, such as wheelchair help or a medical need, the safest thing is to place the request on the booking and then confirm directly with the airline that it has been accepted before the day of travel.