Airlines to support 1bn passengers living with disabilities

Airlines have reached a consensus to improve air travel experience, to support the estimated one billion people living with disabilities worldwide.

The agreement was one of the resolutions reached on Monday at the round-off session of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) 75th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Seoul, South Korea.

The meeting confirmed the commitment of airlines to ensuring that passengers with disabilities have access to safe, reliable, and dignified travel, and called on governments to use IATA’s core principles for accommodating passengers with disabilities.

These principles aim to change the focus from disability to accessibility and inclusion by bringing the travel sector together with governments to harmonise regulations and provide the clarity and global consistency that passengers expect.

IATA’s Director-General and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Alexandre de Juniac, said Airlines were ahead of their time when, 50 years ago, they set out standards to ensure passengers with disabilities had access to air travel.

“But now we need to go further. The numbers of persons with disabilities travelling by air are set to increase significantly as populations expand and grow older. We applaud the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. With today’s resolution the industry is committed to ensure that passengers living with disability can travel safely and with dignity,” de Juniac said.

The resolution requests that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) applies IATA’s core principles as the basis for its multilateral initiatives on accessibility for passengers with disabilities. This work is vital to help harmonise national legislation and regulations, which otherwise could create a patchwork of confusing or even contradictory requirements for passengers and airlines.

An IATA survey of 48 airlines reported that the requests for wheelchair assistance grew by 30 per cent between 2016 and 2017, putting strain onto the quality of the service provided.

Airlines and airports are working together to ensure that wheelchair assistance is available to those who need it. In parallel, they are also working to develop other forms of assistance for passengers who are mobile but do not feel comfortable navigating through a large airport.

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