[nagdu] Travelers with disabilities face obstacles at airports

[cheryl echevarria]

This is why especially to get names of everyone involved and call the 
company as soon as possible as well as the TSA, if you don't tell they don't 
know.

With laws such as the Air Carrier Access Act and the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, you might assume that people with disabilities no longer 
encounter obstacles at U.S. airports.
Unfortunately, that's not true. "Frankly, there isn't enough policing going 
on to go look at all these airports to see if they're 100% compliant," notes 
Tim Joniec of the Houston Airport System. "So at some airports it may take a 
traveler complaining about a service that isn't there before attention is 
paid to a problem."

And even if a traveler does lodge a complaint, "you'd be surprised at how 
many airports, including some enormous ones, just don't care," says Eric 
Lipp, the executive director of the Open Doors Organization (ODO), a 
non-profit that works with businesses and the disability community.

For those that do care, next month the Open Doors Organization (ODO) and the 
International Air Transport Association (IATA) will host a conference about 
universal access in airports. On the agenda: tools, technology and training 
to help both airports and airlines do a better job of serving travelers with 
disabilities.

One topic sure to be discussed is money. About 55 million people in this 
country have some sort of disability. This community spends upwards of $14 
billion a year on travel; more than $3 billion a year on airplane tickets 
alone.

With medical care and life expectancy improving, the number of travelers 
with disabilities is predicted to increase to more than 80 million in the 
next 20 years. Yet, when the Open Doors Organization surveyed adults with 
disabilities about travel, more than 80% reported encountering obstacles at 
airports and with airline personnel.

This group could include you in the future. The number of travelers who may 
encounter obstacles at airports is even larger, says ODO's Lipp, "If you 
consider the people who don't self-identify as having a disability." That 
might include aging boomers unwilling to admit they're having trouble seeing 
information on flight display boards or hearing the overhead announcements. 
And it can also include temporarily-disabled people, such a vacationer 
heading home from a ski trip with a broken leg.

"Revenues from this market could easily double," says Lipp, "If certain 
needs were met and more obstacles removed."

Universal access universally helpful

Lipp and others point out that removing obstacles at airports makes 
traveling easier for all passengers, not just those with disabilities. And 
there are plenty of examples of how making changes makes sense.

Curb cuts help those with strollers and wheeled luggage as much as they 
assist travelers using wheelchairs, walkers, canes or scooters. Family 
bathrooms are great for parents traveling with small children, but special 
lavatories at airports also offer grab bars and other amenities that a 
disabled traveler, or one traveling with an attendant, might find useful. 
Many general-use airport bathrooms are cleaner due to ADA-compliant 
self-flush toilets, automatic faucets and motion-sensing paper towel 
dispensers. And weave-through entryways reduce germs by eliminating the need 
for everyone to grab the door handle.

Visual-paging systems, like the high-tech ones now installed airport-wide at 
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, were originally created to 
assist hearing-impaired passengers. But all passengers can benefit from 
having an additional way to receive emergency messages and courtesy pages.

And of course, air passengers must be able to get to the gate before they 
can fly.

At George Bush Intercontinental Airport, passengers must now either walk or 
negotiate elevators, escalators or a bus when trying to reach Terminal A 
from Terminal B. That barrier will disappear in October when the airport's 
above-ground train finally links Terminal A to the other four terminals. 
"Those with mobility challenges will certainly benefit from this," says the 
airport's Tim Joniec, "But because 70% of our passengers make a connection 
at IAH, this will definitely be noticed by all travelers."

Some airlines embrace universal access

Airlines, which are responsible for providing wheelchair services at 
airports, have also made some special accommodations that end up smoothing 
out the journey for all passengers.

If you travel with a pet, you've probably noticed the recent proliferation 
of fenced, landscaped animal relief areas at airports. While pet parks are a 
welcome general-use amenity, they're popping up because the Carrier Access 
Act now requires airlines to make relief areas available for service dogs 
accompanying travelers.

Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air often uses ramps instead of stairs to board all 
passengers, not just those using wheelchairs, onto smaller Horizon planes at 
gates where jet bridges are unavailable. "That way no one has to negotiate 
steep steps to and from the airplane and everyone can enter the airplane the 
same way," says Ray Prentice, Alaska Airlines' director of Customer 
Advocacy.

And for the past three years, Continental Airlines (which will legally merge 
with United Airlines on October 1st) has been getting feedback and advice 
from a thirteen member advisory board made up of passengers with 
disabilities.

"Before this board, if we got a service complaint from a passenger with a 
disability, we'd tweak the policy so it wouldn't happen again," says 
Continental's disability programs manager Bill Burnell. "Now we can 
anticipate problem areas before they become complaints. And try to go beyond 
the minimum ADA requirements. We've learned there's a big difference between 
something being ADA compliant and it being universally accessible."


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Cheryl Echevarria
http://Echevarriatravel.com
1-866-580-5574
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Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Montrose Travel CST-1018299-10
Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Absolute Cruise and Travel Inc.

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