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Disability Services

Our experiences with disability services, and helpful research, specifically in relation to air travel.

Our Experience with Airport Disability Services, and What We Have Learned

Posted on by Aaron

Our Experiences

This post is a complicated one to write as we are in the midst of attempting to file claims and pursue legal action against those that may have been involved in the failures of disability services to protect Diana and get her to her gate on the leg of her trip from the US. It is important to note that her disability services experience at the Frankfurt layover was fantastic. They were helpful, polite, and had very accessible transportation. A completely distinct experience from what she had at the US airport.

In the US, Diana was abandoned at one of those airline clubs, not near her gate, and the disability agent never returned, she was then forced to rush herself to the gate without any assistance, in fact she had to endure misdirection as well. Among the reasons Diana requested assistance was mobility issues. We have attempted to obtain the video documentation, but have been thwarted by their complaints of security issues and lack of staff to review the footage. The reality is more likely that they also want to complicate a lawsuit, requiring us to speed up finding a lawyer willing to take the case. It seems only a lawyer can force their hand, before they erase the footage, which hopefully they haven’t already. As it is a challenge to sue airlines in the US, finding a lawyer has been difficult.

Continue reading “Our Experience with Airport Disability Services, and What We Have Learned”

Air Travel and the Air Carrier Access Act

Posted on by Aaron

Original Link | Metropolitan Airport News

Julia Lauria-Blum | BY JULIA LAURIA-BLUM | NOVEMBER 14, 2022 | 14 MINS READ

Accessible Services at New York Airports

This October, the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 (ACAA) celebrated its 36th anniversary. The ACAA (Public Law 99–435) prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in commercial air transportation. Airlines are required to provide passengers with disabilities with many types of assistance, including wheelchair or other guided assistance to board, deplane, or connect to another flight, and seating accommodation assistance that meets passenger’s disability-related needs, as well as assistance with the loading and stowing of assistive devices. After a lengthy rulemaking process that included regulatory negotiations involving representatives of the disability community and the airline industry, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) issued a final ACAA rule in March 1990, which has been amended 15 times by the USDOT to further improve access to transportation facilities and services.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 61 million adults in the U.S. live with a disability, which includes impairment in mobility, cognition, hearing, vision, independent living, and self-care. 

Air travel for people with disabilities can be exceptionally challenging if airport facilities are not accessible and reasonable accommodations are not made, as in the most recent amendment to the Air Carrier Access Amendments Act (ACAA) of 2021. This bill expands provisions prohibiting discrimination against disabled individuals by an air carrier. Specifically, it lists certain actions that an air carrier must take or may not take concerning a disabled individual. Despite these amendments, people with disabilities, including veterans, continue to experience significant barriers with traveling in air transportation, such as damaged assistive devices; inaccessible aircraft, lavatories, communication media, delayed assistance; the treatment of service animals, inadequate disability cultural competency, and a lack of suitable seating accommodations.

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Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights

Posted on by Aaron

Original Link | USDOT

This Bill of Rights describes the fundamental rights of air travelers with disabilities under the Air Carrier Access Act and its implementing regulation, 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 382. 

Please click this link to download the latest version of the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights consists of:

  1. The Right to Be Treated with Dignity and Respect.
  2. The Right to Receive Information About Services and Aircraft Capabilities and Limitations.
  3.  The Right to Receive Information in an Accessible Format.
  4. The Right to Accessible Airport Facilities.
  5. The Right to Assistance at Airports.
  6. The Right to Assistance on the Aircraft.
  7. The Right to Travel with an Assistive Device or Service Animal.
  8. The Right to Receive Seating Accommodations.
  9. The Right to Accessible Aircraft Features.
  10. The Right to Resolution of a Disability-Related Issue.
Continue reading “Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights”

Despite calls to improve, air travel is still a nightmare for many with disabilities

Posted on by Aaron

Original Link | NPR

November 9, 202112:57 PM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
By Joseph Shapiro, Allison Mollenkamp

A man using a wheelchair hands his ID to an officer at a security screening checkpoint at Orlando International Airport in 2020.
Paul Henness/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Anxiety, dread, humiliation — even potential injury. For many people with disabilities, these are part of the routine of airline travel, from getting to the airport gate to getting on and off the plane.

In 2018, Congress demanded that airlines and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) make flying better for people with disabilities — but three years later, NPR has found, passengers report that the same problems keep happening over and over.

On a trip last year, Heather Leiterman, who is blind, was told by a TSA agent to take the harness, collar and leash off her guide dog, a black Labrador named Coastie. She explained to the agent that to do so would mean she’d lose control of the animal.

“That’s how they know they’re working. When the harness is on, they’re working. When the harness is off, that’s when they’re just a dog.”

But the agent insisted — even though the TSA’s own procedures say those items “do not require removal” for screening. “He was very hostile,” Leiterman says, and threatened not to let her on the plane if she didn’t comply.

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Access to Airports by Individuals with Disabilities

Posted on by Aaron

Original Link | Government Accountability Office

United States Government Accountability Office

PASSENGERS WITH DISABILITIES
Airport Accessibility Barriers and Practices and DOT’s Oversight of Airlines’ Disability-Related Training

What GAO Found

Passengers with disabilities face infrastructure, information, and customer service barriers at U.S. airports, according to representatives of selected airports, disability advocacy organizations, as well as a review of relevant literature.

  • Infrastructure barriers can include complex terminal layouts and long distances between gates and can be difficult for some to navigate.
  • Essential travel information is not always available in a format accessible to all. For example, a person with hearing loss could miss crucial gate information that is solely provided over a loudspeaker.
  • A passenger might not receive appropriately sensitive service, such as wheelchair assistance, at the airport, although the service provided is required by the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 (ACAA) regulations.
  • According to stakeholders, while no solution meets all needs, a number of
    practices can help reduce or eliminate some of these barriers to equal access at
    airports. For example, some selected airports use external disability community
    and passenger groups to proactively engage in identifying barriers and develop
    solutions. Other airports have implemented technology-based solutions, such as
    mobile phone applications to make airport navigation easier.
Continue reading “Access to Airports by Individuals with Disabilities”