Airways have a horrible report of dealing with wheelchairs and different gear for disabled vacationers. On common not less than two dozen wheelchairs get broken each day. The Division of Transportation has simply issued a $50 million high quality to American Airways after a a number of years-long investigation into these very abuses of disabled passengers.
On a far too common foundation, airways appear to assume mobility units aren’t any totally different than a chunk of bags. Nevertheless, in case your baggage goes lacking or will get broken that’s an inconvenience that the majority vacationers can handle. If you’re disabled traveler and rely in your wheelchair to get round, and it arrives at your vacation spot damaged it could possibly destroy your journey and even jeopardize your security.
My spouse and I skilled this firsthand again in 2016 when Air Canada broke her power-assisted wheelchair making our Mexico trip lower than ultimate. We now have reported on a number of different cases the place airways misplaced, mishandled, or straight-up destroyed different disabled vacationers’ gear. One passenger died from a pores and skin an infection that began with a strain sore after she was pressured to sit down on a tough floor for hours as a result of United Airways misplaced her wheelchair.
DOT reviewed complaints relating to the mishandling of wheelchairs, mobility gear, and the remedy of disabled vacationers from 2019 to 2023 and decided that American Airways was the worst offender thus leading to a $50 million high quality.
“U.S. Division of Transportation (DOT) introduced a $50 million penalty in opposition to American Airways (American) for quite a few critical violations of the legal guidelines defending airline passengers with disabilities between 2019 and 2023. DOT’s investigation into American Airways uncovered instances of unsafe bodily help that at occasions resulted in accidents and undignified remedy of wheelchair customers, along with repeated failures to supply immediate wheelchair help. American additionally mishandled 1000’s of wheelchairs by damaging them or delaying their return, leaving vacationers with out the gadget they want for mobility. “
Of that $50 million, American Airways will obtain a “credit score” of $25 million for gear and system investments to scale back delays, injury, and mishandling. American may even use that credit score to reimburse disabled vacationers for injury. If the airline doesn’t make these investments that $25 million must be paid to DOT.
Whereas dealing with wheelchairs and different mobility gear with care must be a commonsense follow, in 2022 the DOT printed the Airline Passengers Invoice of Rights that additional solidifies the Air Provider Entry Act that went into impact in 2018.
In a press release, American Airways expressed a dedication to raised serve disabled vacationers and detailed how the corporate has taken steps over latest years to scale back these sorts of incidents.
That is the most important high quality ever levied in opposition to an airline for the mistreatment of disabled vacationers and the DOT states that this could function a precedent for violations from different airways going ahead
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg stated of the high quality:
“The period of tolerating poor remedy of airline passengers with disabilities is over…With this penalty, we’re setting a brand new commonplace of accountability for airways that violate the civil rights of passengers with disabilities. By setting penalties at ranges past a mere price of doing enterprise for airways, we’re aiming to vary how the trade behaves and forestall these sorts of abuses from occurring within the first place.”
