The latest RedCabin event was an exciting one for us as we co-hosted a workshop entitled: Universal Skies: Towards the Next Level of Passenger Accessibility alongside our guest Mary Doyle, the journalist and Accessible Aviation Consultant, as well as representatives from both Airbus and Lufthansa.
We worked on the roundtable, with Airbus’s Axel Becker and Andreas Schütt and Danica Waitkus of Lufthansa. The session was broken down into four groups with each group focusing on a different area of accessibility: Reduced Mobility, Hearing, Visual and Cognitive.
L to R: Andreas Schuett of Airbus, Sarah McOnie of Airchair, Mary Doyle of Rocket Girl Coaching and Runway Girl, Danica Waitkus of Lufthansa and Axel Becker of Airbus at RedCabin 2026, Hessen, Germany
Airbus provided personas for each of the categories alongside information to the delegates about what these personas found challenging about air travel. The roundtable dug further into that information, to think about how we could make their experience easier and what tangible things could help, i.e. physical products like an aisle chair, or better communication or improved signage etc.
Interestingly, communication was a recurring theme at the summit. For example, Airbus and Boeing announced that they have been working together on new standardised tactile icons. Currently aircraft symbols are not universal, unlike, for example road signs.
Airbus and Boeing are developing a standard to be used across the whole aviation industry. So, it doesn’t matter whether you fly on a Boeing aircraft or an Airbus aircraft; all the signage will be identical. This will make travel much easier for those with accessibility issues.
Another topic that came up repeatedly, and Mary Doyle brought this to life in the workshop through her lived experience, was the fact that the airline is not responsible for moving passengers with accessibility issues through the airport. That’s the airport’s responsibility.
But what many people don’t realise is that it is also the airport’s responsibility to get the passengers into their seat. Mary explained that currently there is a disconnect happening here. Quite often, the people the airports are employing (or often sub-contracting through a third party) for this task haven’t been properly trained, often aren’t great communicators and are poorly paid. This ‘service’ can reflect badly on the airline even though they have no control over it.
In Mary’s opinion, as opposed to neither the airport nor the airline being directly responsible, it should be viewed that both are equally accountable. In her view the attitude towards this part of the accessibility experience by both airlines and airports has got to change.
The latest RedCabin summit reaffirmed that supporting the PRM on their journey remains an incredibly complex situation because everybody’s needs are so different. However, there are clear advances being made and continuing the conversation at RedCabin will keep it high on the agenda.
By Sarah McOnie, Airchair