Business Discrimination Worries: Easy Jet

Any person knows domestic air travel is a routinely miserable experience. Cash strapped airlines fly older planes packed to capacity. Flight crews and ground personal are woefully under staffed and subject to intense pressure to adhere to increasingly strict deadlines. Passengers do not help the situation. Many people try to carry on inappropriately large luggage and slow down the tedious boarding process. Tension is the norm as is rude behavior on the part of passengers and employees. Into this mix enters a person that uses a wheelchair and the result is increased misery. When my fellow passengers see me and my wheelchair some openly groan, become angry, annoyed, or worried their flight will be delayed by my presence. In short, they are worried about themselves and their schedule. Airline personnel have a similar reaction: they do not perceive me as a human being and paying customer but extra work that could theoretically delay a flight and get them in trouble. As a seasoned traveler, I do my best to assert my rights as outlined in the Air Carrier Access Act passed in 1990 in a polite and dignified manner. I try to keep my wits about me knowing travel was much harder and in some cases impossible before the law was on my side. In addition I remind myself the commercial airline industry has a long history of actively and aggressively discriminating against passengers with disabilities. These sorts of thoughts keep me calm when confronted with airline employees that are obstructive, unhelpful, and demeaning.

When I travel by plane I know I am entering a hostile environment. When I leave for the airport I feel as though I am getting ready for battle. I know, however, that the battle is one that I will win. Sure I may be treated poorly but I know I will be able to get from point A to point B. The Department of Transportation and the Air Carrier Access insures I will be able to get on and off a plane and navigate the airline terminal. None of this will be easy but it gets done. The fact is the ACA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in air travel. All air carriers are required by law to accommodate the needs of passengers with disabilities. For instance, carriers cannot refuse to transport people on the basis of a disability assuming they do not present a flight safety risk. If a carrier believes a person with a disability represents such a risk they must provide a written explanation. Airlines cannot require advance notice that a person with a disability is traveling (they can require 48 hours notice if a passenger needs a respirator hook up). Carriers cannot limit the number of passengers with a disability. Carriers cannot require a person with a disability to travel with an attendant. These are the highlights of a complex and poorly understood law, one that is not followed in my opinion by airlines. In spite of its flaws, I consider the law essential to my right to fly. I am however worried. In Europe discount airlines have come up with a creative way to discriminate against people with disabilities. Here I refer to those that travel with power wheelchairs.

For those unfamiliar with power wheelchairs, these wheelchairs can be beasts as in they are very heavy. They are also astronomically expensive, in many cases custom designed for the user and as a result singularly unusual. A replacement chair could take many months to manufacture. These wheelchairs are complex pieces of technology that make an independent life possible for a person with a disability. They are not designed to be taken apart and put back together again. Yet this is exactly what some discount European airlines such as Easy Jet expect passengers to do. European discount airlines are using a trick as old as the hills to discriminate against people with disabilities that use power wheelchairs: health and safety. This is an instant red flag in the history of disability discrimination--once people start talking about health and safety people with a disability are screwed. Whose safety is Easy Jet trying to protect? I love this new twist--not the passengers with a disability but baggage handlers. According to Easy Jet no power wheelchair above 60kg can be accommodated unless it breaks up into pieces that weight less than 60kg. Some power wheelchairs can weigh twice as much. No power wheelchair I am aware of is designed to be broken down into separate pieces. Hence Easy Jet has targeted a specific population of people, those that use power wheelchairs, and are actively trying to keep them from flying. People with disabilities that use power wheelchairs have been denied boarding by Easy Jet. This worries me--will other European airlines follow Easy Jet's lead? To date, big carriers such as British Airways and Virgin have no weight restrictions for power wheelchairs. Yet I cannot help but wonder will some discount American based airline try to enact similar policies Easy Jet has enacted? Given the discriminatory history of American based carriers against people with disabilities it would not surprise me.