DOT Adds Measures to Protect Disabled Airline Passengers

When it comes to commercial air travel, you don’t need to look too hard to find nightmarish accounts of flights gone wrong and customer service gone awry. But there’s an especially unsettling category of airline horror stories: those that involve disabled travelers who have important equipment lost or damaged while flying. An airline losing your luggage is bad; an airline losing your wheelchair is much, much worse.

This week, the U.S. Department of Transportation took a number of steps to make disabled passengers’ journeys less fraught. Among the changes implemented this week are a requirement that “airlines provide safe and dignified assistance to individuals with disabilities.” To that end, the rule mandates that airline employees who work with disabled travelers must undergo training; it also includes guidelines to help disabled passengers deplane with greater ease.

In addition, the DOT’s new rules include steps to make sure that mobility devices checked by an airline are returned to their users without damage. In the event that such a device is damaged, airlines will be required to provide a loaner to the passenger and to have a vendor of their choice handle the repairs. If a wheelchair or scooter is delayed in transit, airlines must reimburse the passengers for their ground transportation.

These new rules are set to be implemented between January 16, 2025 and June 17, 2026, with the latter date applying to the airline employee training mentioned earlier.

“With the new protections we’re announcing today, we’re establishing a new standard for air travel — with clear and thorough guidelines for airlines to ensure that passengers using wheelchairs can travel safely and with dignity,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.

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As The Points Guy’s David Slotnick observed, these rules were first proposed earlier this year and have since been finalized. They’re rooted in the Air Carrier Access Act, which was first passed in 1986 and prohibited airlines from discriminating against disabled people. Hopefully these new measures will reduce the number of airline incidents concerning lost wheelchairs and scooters — and make flying that much more pleasant for everyone.