“We’re really trying to make clear that just like a number of other passenger protections required by rule and by law, taking proper care of wheelchairs and the passengers to use them is fundamental and is required,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during a briefing with reporters. “And there are consequences for airlines that don’t do that.”
The rulemaking also seeks to make mishandling of wheelchairs and other assistive devices an automatic violation of the Air Carrier Access Act, a shift that would enable officials to more easily penalize and hold air carriers accountable when mobility devices are damaged or mishandled, Buttigieg said. In addition, under the proposed rule, carriers would have to make loaner wheelchairs available when users’ devices are being repaired or replaced.
“I know from personal experience that when an airline damages or breaks a wheelchair, it’s much more than a simple inconvenience — it’s the equivalent of breaking someone’s legs,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who joined Buttigieg and other officials at the White House on Thursday for a discussion of the rule. “This proposed rule is critically important to helping ensure every passenger with a disability is treated with the dignity and respect all Americans deserve.”
At the event, several representatives for advocacy groups asked how strictly the measures would be enforced, who would be involved in the mandated training, and when wheelchair users might finally be able to sit in their own seat on a plane.
Kimberly Tissot, president and CEO of Able South Carolina, said she ran into issues flying to Washington for Thursday’s announcement. Someone at the airport where she departed referred to her as “the scooter,” she said, and a worker told her she needed to walk down the boarding ramp rather than drive her scooter to the end.
“This is something that we’ve been complaining about for decades,” she said. “This is critical and a game changer. We should not experience this type of discrimination in 2024.”
According to the Transportation Department, an estimated 5.5 million Americans use a wheelchair, and many encounter barriers when traveling by air. Since 2018, air carriers have been required to report the number of mobility devices they’ve mishandled, damaged, delayed or destroyed. In 2022, more than 11,000 wheelchairs, power wheelchairs and scooters were lost, damaged, delayed or stolen. Those numbers are expected to be even higher for 2023, officials said.
Theo Braddy, who also attended the White House event, said his wheelchair was damaged so frequently that he’d given up flying. Braddy, executive director of the National Council on Independent Living, said that progress on the issue was so slow, he thought it would take another generation before things changed. On Thursday, he was heartened that change was here.
“I didn’t think this would happen in my lifetime,” he said. “I’m so glad I might get a chance to see it.”
Kings Floyd, a fellow at the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, said in a statement that the proposed rules are a significant milestone but that enforcement and dedicated resources within the Transportation Department as well as cooperation from airlines will be key to ensuring that the rules are followed in ways that improve air travel for wheelchair users.
“These provisions, however, bear little impact on the everyday lives of disabled customers if they are not enforceable,” added Floyd, who previously worked on disability issues at the Transportation Department.
The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed rules — part of a push by the administration to improve the flying experience for everyone. Other steps the administration has taken include making billions of dollars available through various programs to improve accessibility at airports, rail and subway stations, Buttigieg said. The administration also finalized a rule to make bathrooms on single-aisle aircraft accessible to people with disabilities.
“The basic promise of transportation is the idea that everyone should be able to travel safely and freely to the places that they need to be,” Buttigieg said. “And if a person is not able to travel simply because someone else decides it’s too hard to accommodate them, the world shrinks for that traveler. It also shrinks for everyone else who would benefit from that person’s presence in any context, from a family gathering to a board meeting.”
The announcement was welcomed by many disability advocates who have fought for years for better treatment of passengers with disabilities.
“Today’s proposed changes by the Department of Transportation include several vital steps that would dramatically improve the air travel experience for people with disabilities,” said Heather Ansley, chief policy officer for Paralyzed Veterans of America. “Too many veterans with spinal cord injuries or diseases, like MS and ALS, have had their wheelchairs or other assistive devices damaged, lost, or destroyed at the hands of airlines. [Others] have been seriously injured during the boarding and deplaning process. Enough is enough.”
