consumer responsibility in civil aviation part 2

This undertaking only implies that the disabled people are treated by the airline operators as goods and not as human beings. The Directorate General of civil aviation, the body in charge of regulating air transport services has not come out with any rules or regulations in respect of safety and protection of rights of the persons with disability or reduced mobility. We therefore have to look into the rules and regulations of other nations.
In this line the first significant regulation is the Regulation (Ec) No 1107/2006 of The European Parliament and of The Council of 5 July 2006, Concerning the Rights of Disabled Persons and Persons with Reduced Mobility when traveling by air. This Regulation establishes rules for the protection of and provision of assistance to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility travelling by air, both to protect them against discrimination and to ensure that they receive assistance. Art.1

This regulation takes in to account the very vocabulary that is used to describe persons with disability. It defines reduced mobility as disabled person’ or ‘person with reduced mobility’ means any person whose mobility when using transport is reduced due to any physical disability (sensory or locomotor, permanent or temporary), intellectual disability or impairment, or any other cause of disability, or age, and whose situation needs appropriate attention and the adaptation to his or her particular needs of the service made available to all passengers; Art. 2

In this definition the term disability is removed from the context of physical condition to the ability to move in the given built environment. It includes aged and the children within its ambit along with persons with certain physical conditions impairing their free mobility. It therefore uses the term person with reduced mobility.

It recognizes the Right of the persons with reduced mobility to reservation and embarking in flights. Art. 3

An air carrier or its agent or a tour operator shall not refuse, on the grounds of disability or of reduced mobility: (a) to accept a reservation for a flight departing from or arriving at an airport to which this Regulation applies;
(b) to embark a disabled person or a person with reduced mobility at such an airport, provided that the person concerned has a valid ticket and reservation.

In case of specific situations where the embarking cannot be made the regulation in art. 4 Provides as follows:
In the event of refusal to accept a reservation on the grounds referred to under points (a) or (b) of the first subparagraph, the air carrier, its agent or the tour operator shall make reasonable efforts to propose an acceptable alternative to the person in question. A disabled person or a person with reduced mobility who has been denied embarkation on the grounds of his or her disability or reduced mobility and any person accompanying this person pursuant to paragraph 2 of this Article shall be offered the right to reimbursement or re-routing as provided for in Article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004. The right to the option of a return flight or re-routing shall be conditional upon all safety requirements being met.

The regulations mandates cumpolsory training for all the staffs even if they are employed by a third part contractor.
Art. 11 Air carriers and airport managing bodies shall:
(a) ensure that all their personnel, including those employed by any sub-contractor, providing direct assistance to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility have knowledge of how to meet the needs of persons having various disabilities or mobility impairments;
(b) provide disability-equality and disability-awareness training to all their personnel working at the airport who deal directly with the travelling public;
(c) ensure that, upon recruitment, all new employees attend disability related training and that personnel receive refresher training courses when appropriate.

Article 12 provides for Compensation for lost or damaged wheelchairs, other mobility equipment and assistive devices whilst being handled at the airport or transported on board aircraft, in accordance with rules of international, Community and national law.
The regulations of the EU provides for filing complaints, appeals, redresses compensations for breach of regulations etc.
Access to Air Travel for Disabled People – Code of Practice ; united kingdom is the ratifying code which ratifies the EU Regulations. It emphasizes that the costs of providing assistance to disabled passengers at airports should not be passed directly to those disabled passengers and that it is cost effective to ensure that access for disabled people is included from the outset as part of the initial design of an aircraft and airport terminal and this directly benefits all customers. for its full text visit www.dft.gov.uk