[nabs-l] Air Canada challenges deaf, blind man's right to travel alone; Burnaby

[Joseph C. Lininger]

A friend of mine originally sent me this artical, and I replied to him
with my thoughts. I've copied them in this message.

I certainly hope that the deaf-blind person wins as well. While I can
understand the airline's concern in some cases (someone who obviously
can't take care of themselves or someone with a severe mental
disability), allowing them to make asesments as to the ability of a
person to travel independently sets a dangerous precedent. If they are
allowed to arbitrarily decide that a deaf-blind person can't travel
independently, then how long do you think it would be before they
decided that about blind people? Or deaf people? Or the elderly? Or any
other group that some ignorant and completely unqualified airline staff
person thought was unable to travel alone?
I also contend that there are able-bodied people that are allowed to
travel alone, but who might have trouble in an evacuation for other
reasons. Take a mother with three very young children for example. By
young, I mean young enough they wouldn't be able to understand and
follow safety procedures on their own. Let's say there was an emergency
situation in which immediate evacuation was required. There is a good
chance that the mother would be determined to evacuate the children
before evacuating herself. There's nothing wrong with that as far as
ethics go. However, there is the potential that her doing that would
cause a disruption in the evacuation and may endanger other passengers.
Do we say she's not allowed to fly too?
Joe