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Airlines Less Accessible
The Travel Critic · January 11, 1999

In this time of overbooked flights and soaring airline profits, Ana Miranda thinks carriers have become increasingly callous to the needs of the disabled.

"Five years ago, it was a straightforward procedure to inform the airlines of my special needs, and the aisle or bulkhead seat would be reserved for me," says Miranda, a New York commercial litigator who has cerebral palsy, a crippling neurological condition. "Not so today."

Miranda has been stuck in middle seats on five-seat rows, "making it impossible for me to use a bathroom during a 6½-hour cross-country flight, not to mention the severe pain shooting up my back and down my legs from sitting in such confinement for extended periods of time."

That shouldn't be happening. Even though the government loosened its regulatory clamps on airlines more than two decades ago, it has tightened the screws on how they deal with the disabled.

The Air Carriers Access Act of 1986 and the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990 specified what the industry had to do to make its facilities more accessible to people with mobility impairments.

The rules stipulate that under most circumstances, an airline may not refuse transportation to a passenger solely on the basis of a disability. Air carriers may not limit the number of passengers with disabilities on a particular flight. Carriers can't discriminate against your condition either, even if it may "offend, annoy, or be an inconvenience to crewmembers or other passengers."

Have airlines conveniently forgotten the rules? Maybe. While carriers are adhering to the letter of the law most of the time, a good argument can be made that the spirit of the law went out the window along with edible airline food.

In talking with advocates for the disabled, I'm left with the impression that in the overall pecking order, people with mobility problems fall somewhere between the bargain-hunting vacationers and the down-on-their-luck, mileage-deficient business travelers.

Candy Harrington, who edits the accessible-travel newsletter Emerging Horizons, believes the oversight isn't intentional. Many airline employees are just ignorant about the needs of the disabled. One particularly disturbing incident involved a flight attendant who refused to help someone who was disabled get to the bathroom because "she thought the passenger could hold it for the rest of the flight," she recalls. "There needs to be more training," she adds. "There isn't enough right now."

Debra Briscoe, who runs Easy Access Travel in Riverside, Calif., which specializes in bookings for the mobility-impaired, says traveling in a wheelchair requires careful planning, persuasive skills and, occasionally, assertiveness.

"People are generally willing to accommodate you if you explain what you need. But if they aren't, you need to know what to do," she says.

Miranda could have saved herself some trouble by contacting her airline's special services department, which handles passengers with disabilities. Once at the gate, she also could have contacted a complaint resolution officer to help her sort out her seating problem. Finally, she could have appealed to the flight attendant to move her once the plane boarded.

Or she could have gotten an upgrade. First-class seats are bigger, plus the cabin staff is far more attentive to the needs of passengers. Miranda thinks carriers should allow disabled passengers to upgrade at a reduced rate if seats are available - an idea that sounds reasonable on first take.

However, with about 43 million disabled people in the United States alone, the implications are problematic. In effect, it could create yet another category of traveler that is entitled to special discounts and privileged treatment.

And that, says Fred Rosen, author of How to Travel: A Guidebook for Persons With a Disability, would be wrong. "No one should come in there with the attitude that the airline owes you something," he warns. "Because the response usually is: 'So what?'"

P.S.: You don't need a doctor's note as proof of your disability unless you're on a stretcher, need medical oxygen or have a communicable disease. Just tell the airline that you're traveling with a disability. Carriers are not required to provide medical oxygen, a hook-up for a respirator or accommodations for people on stretchers. You airline is supposed to offer you seating in a row with movable aisle armrests.

On large commercial aircraft, priority space in the cabin must be provided for stowage of at least one passenger's folding wheelchair. (This rule also applies to aircraft of smaller size, if there is a closet large enough to accommodate a folding wheelchair.)

At least one accessible lavatory (with door locks, call buttons, grab bars and lever faucets) must be available, with sufficient room to allow a passenger using an on-board wheelchair to enter, maneuver and use the facilities with the same degree of privacy as other passengers.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.