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Rewriting the Future of Airline Accessibility
True story. I live in Rhode Island where anything over 20 minutes is considered far, everyone is essentially one degree of separation away from each other, and we only have one statewide newspaper. So when I saw this article about making airlines accessible the other day, I got pretty excited.
The article focuses on a woman named Michelle Erwin whose son has SMA. She has been incredibly active in this pursuit ever since she and her family traveled to Disney in 2011 and had to disassemble her son’s wheelchair. In this article, she discusses the challenges people who use wheelchairs face in traveling, the advocacy work that’s currently underway, and the future of airline accessibility.
What did you think of this article? I’m sure we can all agree that accessible airlines need to happen— like yesterday. Traveling has always been a nightmare for me in that respect.
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2 Replies
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It shows what one person can do!
The U.S. Access Board is undertaking a study with the Transportation Research Board to assess the feasibility of wheelchair restraint systems on aircraft, and will make their conclusions known this fall.
It is totally possible to design aircraft so that a person can fly safely while sitting in their own wheelchair. It is also possible to make the “wheelchair spot” convertible to a regular passenger seat so that airlines don’t lose a fare if no one happens to be flying in their wheelchair.
A “wheelchair spot” might require the space of two seats, so if someone is flying in a wheelchair, there is a possibility airlines will lose revenue of one airfare – but that’s only if the plane is booked to capacity and many are not.
I’m following study this from Canada with great interest because it might mean that I will be able to fly again one day – and there are places I want to go and people I want to see!
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It says at the bottom: “The report is expected by October 2021.” So it’ll be a while before anything comes from this.
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