Making Trouble Again

[davidgillon]

I've commented for news stories before, but Air Traffic Regulator has been doing Half a Job by Ignoring Airlines may be the first time I've created one. I spotted that the Civil Aviation Authority has been monitoring airport performance against the EU legislation on air travel for disabled people, but pointed out to Disability News Service, who'd covered the airport report, that the legislation covers airlines as well as airports, and CAA aren't checking that. I may not be the CAA's favourite person at the moment. The good thing is it may actually encourage a change in policy.

And then I escalated to criticising IATA, the airline industry's trade association. They released a resolution on Friday, admitting they have a problem carrying disabled people (good), and a particular problem carrying wheelchairs (double good), and a set of proposals to deal with the issues. Which look great. Unless you happen to know the treaties governing air travel, in which case you can tell that what they really want is to stop any airline being compelled to offer full compensation for damaged or destroyed wheelchairs (the Montreal Convention currently limits compensation to £1500, which is completely inadequate). So I  tweeted out my analysis almost before they released the thing, which they've now promised to respond to, and in the meantime I've turned it into my first blog post in a couple of years:

An Analysis of the IATA Resolution on "Passengers With Disabilities"

BTW, if anyone hasn't heard, the US airlines have been required to release stats on damaged wheelchairs since the start of the year (should have started a couple of years ago, but Trump), and it turns out they're damaging or destroying over 30 a day. On the worst airline, there is a 1 in 5 chance of your chair being damaged on a round trip. And this is in the US, with enforcement of disability stuff by the FAA under the Air Carrier Access Act which far exceeds any kind of fine or sanction levied elsewhere, so the rest of the world is probably worse.

In other news I'm pissed off that I won't be at Worldcon. I had hoped to arrange a last minute trip during July, but family stuff made it impossible. I'm hoping I'll be slightly less pissed off once it's over, but that's not guaranteed.

Comments

[hilarita]

Sorry you're missing out on Worldcon, it would have been great to have the chance to meet.

Also, £1500 is totally inadequate for compensation for wheelchairs, given that even relatively simple custom wheelchairs (i.e ones without electronics, and pretty much all wheelchairs that you actually want to use have to be slightly custom to fit you etc etc) are *at least* £2-3,000, and complicated ones cost the same as a small car. As soon as I've got some bandwidth back from Brexit-related stuff, I'll try to poke some MEPs about it.

[davidgillon]

Actually I wrote the wrong figure down, it's about £1250, not £1500. That wouldn't even cover half of my very basic chair. It's easy to hit five figures with a power chair, and high end prosthetics can be north of $50,000 a limb.

The whole point of the Montreal Convention was to make airlines better able to survive post-aircrash compensation claims. It's an incredibly cynical piece of legislation.

And I'd have loved to see you to.

[jesse_the_k]

Hooray for harnessing your extensive knowledge for good. Thank you.

(Those airline stats have convinced me I’m never flying again in this lifetime.)

(Sorry about WorldCon).

Not that you’re short of examples

[jesse_the_k]

mari_ness is currently dealing with a Eurozone of airlines breaking her wheelchair and mishandling the replacement issue. She discusses direct safety concerns, since she faints when not seated. Her eloquent tweets reach back a week.

Re: Not that you’re short of examples

[davidgillon]

Oh, hell. And she'd just had another mobility device stolen before that IIRC. I'll take a look.

Re: Not that you’re short of examples

[davidgillon]

Good god, I've just had a read of the thread.

They didn't just break it and then only partly fix it, they managed to lose it in the middle. Tweeting her to ask if her missing wheelchair had shown up is a truly spectacular level of incompetence.

Bit late to be useful, probably, but I've tweeted her the name of the EU equivalent of the ACAA and that Aer Lingus should have been well aware that under it they're required to both repair her chair and provide an interim replacement.

Re: Not that you’re short of examples

[jesse_the_k]

It was damn horrific!

She somehow managed to do some tourism anyway — Iron Traveller, her.

[yhlee]

*support support*

Sorry I won't see you at Worldcon. Best wishes to your family.

[davidgillon]

Thanks Yoon, missing the chance to see you (and other DW attendees, and non-DW friends) is one of the reasons I'm so pissed off about it.

Thankfully the family stuff seems to be settling down, but too late to do anything about Dublin.