[nfb-talk] canes and planes

David Andrews dandrews at visi.com
Wed Jun 24 10:21:46 UTC 2009


There were several incidents in the 1980's where people were 
arrested, people were removed from planes, planes were held up 
etc.  Then basically, with the passage of the Air Carrier Access Act, 
in 1986 or 88 I think, we lost any legal defense we might have 
had.  The airlines were able to put into this law that anyone sitting 
in an exit row had to be able to do certain things visually.

So, we have lost that battle, but the war isn't over yet.  I think we 
were to early in our protests -- that is society just wasn't far 
enough along in its thinking at the time where they could understand 
and accept what we were saying.

The one thing we did accomplish, which benefits all airline 
passengers is that we forced airlines to look at their practices 
concerning exit row seating, and give it more attention.  Way back 
then people who shouldn't have sat there were allowed to do so, 
people who sat there were allowed to get inebriated etc.

Dave

At 04:17 PM 6/23/2009, you wrote:
>Good Morning from the Western Pacific,
>
>I'm getting ready to present some opening remarks at a technology
>conference here, and wonder if I could have some help; specifically,
>I'd like to move beyond myth, legend and hearsay and learn the truth
>about what happened when the NFB protested against having canes taken
>away on airlines. By the way, I'm pretty old, and never had a problem
>with my cane on a plane but since lots of people did, and the NFB
>dealt with it, I'd like to know some specific things. For one thing,
>I've heard or read or just intuited, that people blocked planes from
>take-off somewhere. I was working it into my talk when I realized that
>I didn't really know if this happened. Having been aided, corrected
>and advised many times on this list, I hope someone will help me learn
>the reality of the situation.
>Thanks very much.
>kat
>
>--
>kathy millhoff - "Let each morn be better than its eve, and each
>morrow richer than its yesterday."
>
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