Big changes are coming to airline accessibility. On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced new protections for passengers with disabilities traveling on commercial airlines.
The new rule, which will begin to roll out in 2025, includes increased training for airport workers who handle wheelchairs and requires a faster process for replacements and repairs when a wheelchair is damaged.
“With the new protections we’re announcing today, we’re establishing a new standard for air travel — with clear and thorough guidelines for airlines to ensure that passengers using wheelchairs can travel safely and with dignity,” Buttigieg said in a statement.
Air travel has long been a challenge for people with disabilities, especially people who use wheelchairs and other mobility devices. Airlines damage thousands of wheelchairs each year. Wheelchairs are typically stowed in cargo, and, according to the Department of Transportation, about 1 out of every 100 mobility devices is damaged in flight.
Sometimes wheelchairs are damaged so badly that it leaves a person stranded for days or weeks, unable to get a replacement or waiting a long time for repairs. Many people with disabilities say that they avoid air travel completely, or have to carefully weigh the benefits with potential risks because they could incur high repair costs or lose their independence for weeks. In October, the Department of Transportation issued a $50 million fine to American Airlines for damaging wheelchairs.
Local disability leaders are welcoming the new rules. Colleen Flanagan, whose wheelchair was badly damaged on a flight from Boston to Washington, D.C. last year, said the changes are “good news.”
“You really can’t put a price tag on somebody’s independence and freedom to move, which is what a wheelchair provides somebody,” Flanagan said.
She hopes the changes can encourage people who may be hesitant to travel.
“A lot of people are missing out on family events, on work opportunities and educational opportunities and so many opportunities because they don’t want to take that risk of having, really, an extension of their body damaged: their wheelchair,” she said.
New rules also include guidance for assisting people with disabilities in a “dignified” manner without injuring them during the boarding and deplaning process; assisting passengers with disabilities as they navigate airports to a connecting flight; more accessible seating in waiting areas; requiring that wheelchairs and mobility devices be returned in the same condition they were received; and new standards for the on-board wheelchairs used on a flight.
And if the devices are damaged, the rules standardize the process, requiring that airlines communicate a timeline to promptly provide a loaner chair and pay for the repair as well as reimbursement for costs incurred because of a delayed wheelchair.
Tom Murphy, an attorney at Disability Law Center, said that the organization has received complaints from passengers with disabilities for “many, many years” about flying and that the new rules look to be “comprehensive” in how it affects all airlines.
“These regulations should have [a] pretty broad-reaching effect,” he said. “It has traditionally been very challenging for passengers who have encountered issues to really rectify the situation and have their rights enforced.”
Rhoda Gibson, co-founder of disability rights group MassADAPT, said that more rigorous training for workers is significant, which includes contractors who are not directly employed by airlines.
In the past, Gibson said her wheelchair has been mishandled, with some parts removed in flight, although not completely destroyed. When she’s on the tarmac, she often looks out the window to see how workers handle wheelchairs, and has seen workers leave power wheelchairs in the rain.
“If the workers don’t know what they’re doing or how to operate a chair, you know, they can easily break it,” she said.
Last Christmas, she was traveling to Washington, D.C. from Boston, and was told her chair couldn’t fit on the plane and that there wasn’t a flight that could accommodate her chair. Her sister ended up paying $1,500 for another flight a few days before Christmas.
The new federal rule includes a requirement that if a person must take another flight because their wheelchair doesn’t fit on a plane, the airline must reimburse them for the difference in cost.
To board, passengers in wheelchairs typically have to transport out of their chair and are transported to a standard airplane seat in a smaller transport chair. Recently, some airlines have started to work on modifications that would allow passengers to stay in their own wheelchairs on flights, like they do on buses and trains.
Flanagan said it would be ideal.
“I think the real victory is going to be when we no longer have to treat wheelchairs like luggage and put them in the cargo bins and instead allow people to sit in their wheelchairs like they do on other public transportation,” Flanagan said.
