Passengers with disabilities “grounded” by proposed Passenger Rights Package

29.11.2023

Andre Felix

Passenger Rights

The European Commission’s revision of the Passengers’ Rights Regulations published today insufficiently addresses the rights and needs of passengers with disabilities, especially during air travel.

We are extremely disappointed with the Commission’s choice not to open an in-depth revision of the specific regulation on the rights of passengers with disabilities when travelling by air (1107/2006). They ignore the problem of the many cases of denial of boarding of persons with disabilities, still allowing blatant discrimination on a daily basis, as well as maintaining uncertainty and additional costs for passengers with disabilities. This choice, made despite repeated calls by the disability movement, will leave passengers with disabilities still living “waking nightmares” when flying.

We do appreciate the improvement in obligating airlines to give a free ticket to accompanying persons – however, this will only apply when the airlines themselves require persons to travel accompanied. We also acknowledge two additional slightly positive actions: enhanced reporting obligations and reinforcing the role of national enforcement bodies. However, our demands remain largely unmet.

The European Commission justified the lack of an in-depth revision and exclusion of our main demands with “a lack of sufficient evidence” despite the gaps in the legislation being well-known and documented. In addition, this revision is needed to bring rules for air travel in line with other transport modes.

Passengers with disabilities will still face constant discrimination and stress due to:

denial of boarding for no apparent reason, often claimed by the airline as “safety” related.
uncertainty created by the lack of information on accessibility to the aircraft and safety rules regarding assistive devices.
application of different rules on safety and accessibility by airlines and airports (for example, on the size of assistive devices they can transport even when using the same aircraft model).
Insufficient compensation for damaged and destroyed assistive and mobility equipment (for example wheelchairs that cost tens of thousands of euros being limited to a compensation of less than 2000 euros.)

These situations will continue as our demands were largely ignored in today’s package. EDF still demands to

Eradicate the common cases of denial of boarding that still happen to persons with disabilities;
Introduce the right to a swift and fair compensation if the air carrier still denies boarding;

Another important demand from the disability movement to ensure that mobility equipment and assistive devices are fully compensated when damaged or lost is already addressed in a previous proposal to revise Regulation 261/2004, which has been stuck in the Council since 2013.

The European Disability Forum’s Vice-President Gunta Anca stated:

“It is unacceptable that after we have brought attention to these issues for the past 17 years, an opportunity to fix these problems is now being missed. The Commission’s reasoning for not addressing our concerns mirrors the experiences persons with disabilities have with airlines: being left on the ground with an arbitrary excuse. This Commissioner failed us, but we will continue our strong campaign to ensure the next Commission corrects this mistake.”

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