With a new invoice and other efforts, users of Congress are searching to deal with problems faced by airline travellers with disabilities. (Anthony Souffle/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
A bipartisan team of lawmakers is on the lookout to institute new demands in get to make air vacation much easier for passengers with disabilities.
Legislation released this thirty day period in the U.S. Senate and Dwelling of Representatives phone calls for the Section of Transportation to study the specialized and fiscal feasibility of allowing for folks to stay in their wheelchairs for the duration of flights.
In addition, the invoice would call for the secretary of transportation to issue regulations mandating that airlines publish dimensions of their cargo retains so that men and women with disabilities can establish no matter whether or not their wheelchairs and other mobility devices will in shape on a certain aircraft. The Transportation Office would also be tasked with analyzing the frequency and forms of harm incurred by wheelchairs and scooters in the course of air journey.
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“As a regular flyer whose wheelchair is on a regular basis broken or harmed, I comprehend firsthand how deeply discouraging it is that our aviation technique nonetheless fails to make positive just about every passenger with a disability is handled with dignity and regard,” mentioned Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Unwell., a single of the lawmakers who introduced the monthly bill. “It’s lengthy previous time we make traveling simpler and much more accessible for the thousands and thousands of People with disabilities who journey by air every yr.”
The invoice identified as the Mobility Aids on Board Make improvements to Life and Empower All, or Cell, Act was also released by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., and Pete Stauber, R-Minn.
Info from the Transportation Section demonstrates that airlines mishandled 11,389 wheelchairs and scooters in 2022 by itself. That’s up from 7,239 the year prior.
In addition to the monthly bill, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is underneath stress to beef up enforcement of the Air Carrier Accessibility Act, the federal law that shields the legal rights of people today with disabilities when they fly.
In a letter this month, Cohen along with Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Dina Titus, D-Nev., requested Buttigieg to review his agency’s enforcement of the law and sought details about how many disability-relevant complaints are dismissed or final result in penalties.
Marlene Sallo, executive director of the Nationwide Incapacity Rights Community, applauded the simply call for bigger transparency.
“Being equipped to file a criticism is an critical initial step,” she claimed. “But People with disabilities are entitled to to know that when they report an abuse of their rights, it will be investigated and settled.”
For his part, Buttigieg indicated final summer that the Transportation Department is doing work towards issuing a rule making it possible for folks with disabilities to remain in their wheelchairs on airplanes, but he acknowledged at the time that it “won’t materialize right away.”
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