Travelers with disabilities have suffered through airlines breaking their wheelchairs, no access to lavatories on long flights and even physical mishandling for far too long.
Take the story of a quadriplegic ventilator user, Nathaniel Foster Jr., in 2019. A United Airlines employee aggressively pushed his wheelchair while exiting a plane, and his legal complaint stated that he looked "fearful" and whispered, "I can't breathe." The gate agent giggled and told a doctor who offered assistance, "We've got this."
Nathaniel had a heart attack and another doctor on the scene found no pulse. He became comatose and suffers severe brain damage today.
The way Nathaniel was treated is unacceptable, but this attitude from airlines toward travelers with disabilities is unfortunately far too common. This year, Congress and the administration are finally taking long-overdue steps to remedy this.
From December 2018 to March 2022, the Department of Transportation reported 20,000 wheelchairs "lost, damaged or completely destroyed by airlines." Reports show an average of 1,000 per month misplaced. For a wheelchair user, this may mean months without use of their custom chair which can result in being homebound, losing wages, and even suffering severe injuries from improper temporary equipment.
Getting airlines to find or repair wheelchairs is often a frustrating process of delay and confusion, and these companies are obviously not responsive to passengers' needs. It gets worse. These same travelers also reported that access to basic bathroom facilities on aircraft are astonishingly inadequate or nonexistent both in terms of design and size.
Aircraft bathrooms are notoriously very tight spaces even for passengers without mobility issues, and for those with mobility issues, accessing an aircraft bathroom is a nonstarter.
Most passengers using wheelchairs just hope they don't need to use the bathroom while others restrict their fluid intake to avoid needing the bathroom on the flight. Caretakers of people with disabilities are also precluded from being able to enter most lavatories with their child with a disability. This is massively exacerbated on long-haul flights.
The two laws governing accessibility and non-discrimination, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA), have not adequately protected accessible standards on aircraft for travelers with disabilities.
The airlines have not acted responsibly toward their disabled customers in this legal vacuum — despite receiving a bailout of $54 billion in direct public funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) is finally paying attention and has proposed rule changes that would mandate staff training, preserve the dignity of travelers with disabilities and provide protections from broken mobility equipment that are long overdue.
This is in addition to a rule change last year that would force airlines to provide accessible lavatories on new single-aisle aircraft built after the next 10 years.
Over the last several months the DOT has asked for comments from the public on these rule changes that are meant to provide clarity to parts of the ACAA. Additionally, in May, Congress passed legislation that included updates to strengthen protections for travelers with disabilities.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization included training requirements for staff, increased accessibility standards, more analysis of wheelchair handling and onboard availability of wheelchairs.
The DOT and Congress's efforts are very positive steps in the right direction, but the time for studies alone is over. The time to enforce the basic rights of travelers to do basic things like access to bathrooms and flying without fear of bodily or device harm is now. The public comments to the DOT are full of horror stories, as a comment from Regina Blye demonstrates:
"As a person with a significant disability, traveling has often been a traumatic, painful, and undignified experience. I have been dropped, dragged, yelled at, and yanked on by airline staff who appeared to lack both the training and the empathy to accommodate my needs appropriately. The lack of appropriate staff and necessary equipment, such as aisle chairs and slide boards, prior to each flight has consistently resulted in distressing and unsafe situations. And it should have been fixed years ago."
It will take a few years for travelers with disabilities to see some of these changes implemented. Airlines should do the right thing and step ahead of the laws, start training staff and provide travelers with disabilities dignity today. Congress should ultimately codify all the proposed DOT rule changes into law, but in the meantime, the DOT must ensure that the proposed rules will be enforced in a timely fashion.
Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D., is senior researcher at Able Americans, the National Center's project to support Americans living with intellectual, developmental and physical disabilities; Rachel K. Barkley, director of the National Center's Able Americans program,
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