Airways have a horrible file of dealing with wheelchairs and different gear for disabled vacationers. On common not less than two dozen wheelchairs get broken day-after-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 suppose mobility units are not any completely different than a bit of bags. Nonetheless, in case your baggage goes lacking or will get broken that’s an inconvenience that almost all 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 might 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 ideally suited. We have now reported on a number of different situations 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 stress sore after she was compelled to take a seat 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 towards 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 offer immediate wheelchair help. American additionally mishandled 1000’s of wheelchairs by damaging them or delaying their return, leaving vacationers with out the system they want for mobility. “
Of that $50 million, American Airways will obtain a “credit score” of $25 million for gear and system investments to cut back delays, harm, and mishandling. American can even use that credit score to reimburse disabled vacationers for harm. 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 ought to be a common sense follow, in 2022 the DOT printed the Airline Passengers Invoice of Rights that additional solidifies the Air Service Entry Act that went into impact in 2018.
In a press release, American Airways expressed a dedication to higher serve disabled vacationers and detailed how the corporate has taken steps over current years to cut back these sorts of incidents.
That is the most important high-quality ever levied towards 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 normal 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 business behaves and forestall these sorts of abuses from taking place within the first place.”
