A320 captain reported that he was not notified of special needs passengers aboard his flight; causin...

Narrative:

I had a flight the other day and this has been on my mind. When I approach a gate I always ask if we have any special passengers. On this flight I was told there were none by the agent. I received the pilot release form prior to shutting the door and it also showed no special passengers. We arrived at the destination and I was told we have 5 wheelchair passengers and 1 of them is an aisle chair. I watched the aisle chair passenger being taken off and he basically had very little body mobility. I thought this is very important info we as the pilots should know about in case of emergency evacuation. My next flight I was surprised to see under special passengers -- emotional support animal -- I thought this is ridiculous. I am given info about people basically getting a free ride for a dog; but I do not know about an aisle chair passenger. I brought this up to the ZZZ flight office. I was given an email saying this info used to be on the release form; but the pilots did not want it. I believe this is very important info for me as the captain to have if I need to evacuate in an emergency. Please include this info for all special passengers; blind; deaf; aisle chair. Anyone who I would need to look out for in an emergency.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 Captain reported that he was not notified of special needs passengers aboard his flight; causing a potential safety risk in the event of an evacuation.

Narrative: I had a flight the other day and this has been on my mind. When I approach a gate I always ask if we have any special passengers. On this flight I was told there were none by the agent. I received the pilot release form prior to shutting the door and it also showed no special passengers. We arrived at the destination and I was told we have 5 wheelchair passengers and 1 of them is an aisle chair. I watched the aisle chair passenger being taken off and he basically had very little body mobility. I thought this is very important info we as the pilots should know about in case of emergency evacuation. My next flight I was surprised to see under special passengers -- emotional support animal -- I thought this is ridiculous. I am given info about people basically getting a free ride for a dog; but I do not know about an aisle chair passenger. I brought this up to the ZZZ flight office. I was given an email saying this info used to be on the release form; but the pilots did not want it. I believe this is very important info for me as the Captain to have if I need to evacuate in an emergency. Please include this info for all special passengers; blind; deaf; aisle chair. Anyone who I would need to look out for in an emergency.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1685052
Time
Date	201909
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A320 captain reported that he was not notified of special needs passengers aboard his flight; causing a potential safety risk in the event of an evacuation.