As I wrote in a recent blog on the DoT Regulations there’s a lot going on right now regarding accessibility and air travel and, in the UK, nothing has been more high profile than The Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group chaired by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. The Group, which was established in November 2024 to bring together industry, consumer representatives and the Civil Aviation Authority (and which I contributed to on behalf of Airchair), recently published its report which, in my opinion, was a little disappointing.
Having read the AATFG report from start to finish it breaks the issues down into five categories and makes 19 recommendations around training, accessing information, disabilities you cannot see and support, which were all entirely sensible. However, it was the mobility aids category that really made me sit up and pay attention. The report recommended that a new group should be set up to look at mobility aids on planes, covering how mobility aids are designed and made and how mobility aids are looked after when people travel.
Baroness Thompson made the point in the report’s foreword that, “There is ongoing work in this area which cuts across jurisdictions” and that “It was not possible to include recommendations for passengers who want to remain in their chairs while flying” which I completely understand. This is a complex area with lots of research and development currently ongoing on various different high-tech solutions.
But, from my point of view, one thing the report did highlight was that there has been a sharp rise in the number of requests for people who wish to use aisle chairs (or as we call them onboard wheelchairs) so why didn’t the report call for onboard wheelchairs to be made mandatory on all aircraft? The fact that all factors relating to ‘mobility aids’ has been kicked down the road to be investigated by a new, yet to be formed, group is frustrating. Onboard wheelchairs are available now, they offer a practical solution to a high number of accessibility issues, and they are a realistic and cost-effective solution for the airlines.
I readily acknowledge that onboard wheelchairs are not the only solution and that there are other issues that a new mobility aid focused group can address, but these are longer-term, more technical challenges. The AATFG had the chance to make a simple, straight forward recommendation and it didn’t take it and the tragedy of that is that passengers who require special assistance will still have a poor flying experience when they don’t need to. It’s extremely disappointing, especially given the fact that we made the above points to the AATFG.
So, in the absence of strong recommendations or a mandate from the AATFG, we will carry on working with the airlines and providing superbly engineered products that are required by law in certain types of aircraft. We are moving forward but the report should have made a giant leap…and it simply didn’t.
by Sarah McOnie, Airchair