If you think airlines treat their passengers badly, try being a passenger with a disability. Bad experiences are routine for travellers with a disability; according to the aviation white paper released today, “people with disability have been left stranded in airports without wheelchairs, have been denied boarding because of their assistance requirements and have been subject to dangerous or humiliating treatment during air travel.”
So pervasive is the shabby treatment of travellers with disabilities that the head of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability Ronald Sackville wrote to airlines and airports early last year about airline and airport failures, including “damage to wheelchairs not rectified by airlines, being dropped on the floor because the hoist that accommodates wheelchairs is not used correctly, limited access to safe ramps and discrimination against people who rely on assistance dogs”.
Most travellers with disabilities use Qantas, and one survey shows a majority of respondents say their travel experience is “poor” or “very poor”. Sackville’s letter didn’t stop damage to mobility equipment by Qantas, or the airline humiliating wheelchair users or forcing them to pay business class airfares in order to travel — although some people with disabilities say Jetstar makes them feel even worse. For an airline that says it proudly sponsors Australia’s paralympians, the constant poor experiences Qantas inflicts on Australians with disabilities is contemptible.
For years, the problem has been a lack of meaningful requirements for airlines to provide services to passengers with disabilities, including allowing airlines to adopt what was effectively a two wheelchair policy, which limited disabled passenger access to flights. The federal government is proposing to bring that era to an end with aviation-specific standards as a schedule to the transport disability standards.
The new standards, to be drafted by the government in consultation with people with a disability, will require airlines and airports to give equal access to people with disabilities and specifically require greater coordination between airports and airlines so that passengers with disabilities have a more seamless service from the moment they arrive at the airport (and don’t have to face a blame game between airline and airport over damage or loss).
The standards will require airlines to set up “assistance profiles” listing accessibility requirements for passengers that can be used to book travel and automatically upload safety information about issues like assistance animals and wheelchair battery specifications. Labor is also proposing to review airline policies with an eye to prohibiting “two wheelchair policies”. It will also lift the amount of compensation passengers can obtain from domestic airlines when wheelchairs are damaged.
Policing the new standards will be one of the tasks of the new Aviation Ombudsman, which is the centrepiece of the white paper and which will replace the industry-funded and toothless “Airline Consumer Advocate”. The ombudsman will draft an Aviation Customer Rights Charter that will cover “what the ombudsperson considers to be reasonable conduct by airlines and airports, giving customers greater clarity and confidence about what they are entitled to when services are not provided as expected. The charter will set out expectations including minimum customer service levels and the prompt payment of refunds, across all fare types, when flights are cancelled or significantly delayed.”
Airlines will also have to report the reasons for delays and cancellations as part of greater reporting and transparency around delay and cancellation rates.
Whether the scheme is strong enough to deliver better on-time performance — there’s evidence from Europe that forcing airlines to pay compensation for long delays leads to better performance — will be a key test. But for travellers with a disability, more basic performance will be a key metric for the new aviation consumer regime.
Are you a person with a disability who has had a negative experience flying with an Australian airline? Let us know your experience by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
