As the busy summer travel season continues, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced actions taken by the US Department of Transportation to help protect disabled air passengers. This has led to the first-ever Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights, along with a notice to airlines to make more effort to always seat young children next to a parent.
“Today’s announcements are the latest steps toward ensuring an air travel system that works for everyone,” said Buttigieg. “Whether you’re a parent expecting to sit together with your young children on a flight, a traveller with a disability navigating air travel, or a consumer travelling by air for the first time in a while, you deserve safe, accessible, affordable, and reliable airline service.”
The Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights will empower air travellers with disabilities to understand and assert their rights, and help ensure that US and foreign air carriers and their contractors uphold those rights.
It was developed using feedback from the Air Carrier Access Act Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of passengers with disabilities, national disability organisations, air carriers, airport operators, contractor service providers, aircraft manufacturers, wheelchair manufacturers, and a national veterans organisation representing disabled veterans.
The notice, urging US airlines to ensure that children who are aged 13 or younger are seated next to an accompanying adult, with no additional charge, comes amid complaints of instances where young children, including a child as young as 11 months, were not seated next to an accompanying adult.
If airlines’ seating policies and practices are found to be barriers to a child sitting next to an adult family member or other accompanying adult family member, the Department will be prepared for potential actions consistent with its authorities.
The latest Air Travel Consumer Report, released last month, shows that consumer complaints against airlines are up more than 300% above pre-pandemic levels.
Similar to 2020 and 2021, refunds continue to be the highest category of complaints received by the Department, and flight problems are the second highest.
To process and investigate these high volumes of complaints, the Department has increased staff numbers handling consumer complaints by 38%.
