Air travel for disabled still a distant dream

I am sure everyone in the habit of watching the news or reading newspapers, would by now be aware of how one of the leading domestic airliners namely Air Sahara, declined to allow Mr Rajeev Rajan to board the flight from Chennai to Delhi, despite his holding a valid ticket and turning up on time. Both the print and television media reported the event promptly and many of us, who also happen to have experienced similar situations earlier, got glued to the newspapers and kept surfing the bouquet of news channels on our respective TV sets, all in the hope of finding out the answer to just one question: ‘What’s their excuse now? ‘

Accepting the refusal on grounds of Mr Rajan having cerebral palsy would have been too embarrassing for the airline. So, an utterly boring routine response was thrown at the seemingly uninterested janta by the airlines spokesperson, and though it satisfied (read, did not affect) the majority of them, it failed to impress me and many of my friends.

Some of the excuses given for refusing Mr Rajan to board the flight were that:

• Mr Rajan was not communicative;
• He was not able to explain or respond to the questions asked by the airline staff;
• He was left at the airport by some driver;
• He did not carry or was able to produce a ‘Fit to Fly’ certificate;
• He was not travelling with an escort;

So on and so forth…

Unfortunately Mr Rajan’s best attempts to explain them that he is a frequent flyer and did not need an escort were, as expected, ignored. Apparently, the airline insisted on an escort and a fitness to fly certificate before calling the police to evict him. He then tried to buy a ticket from Spice Jet but they declined to sell him one as well.

This is not the first incident of this kind. Sometime back a similar case was reported when a child with autism was not allowed to board a Deccan flight in spite of being accompanied by his parents on the pretext that he ‘looked’ dubious and a threat to fellow passengers. There will be many more such incidents that surely must be happening, but go unnoticed.

“Fit to fly certificate; compulsory escort to fly even if you mange your life independently at all times; not allowing boarding even with parents on the pretext that the facial expression of the passenger looked strange” , does any of this sound strange at all?

Is it not amazing that when on one hand, in a country like the US, no person with disability is required to announce their disability or be forced to be escorted by a personal carer if they don’t require one, both these considered discriminatory. We, on the other hand, use police force against disabled persons or even declare them as threat to on-board security, without even assessing or understanding their needs.

In August 2006, the Office of the Director-General Civil Aviation (DGCA) came out with a draft Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) for Carriage of Physically Challenged Passengers. It was up for public review till October 2006 after which it was supposed to be incorporated in the main document for enforcement. There are a whole set of recommendations that were sent by us as specialists in policy review to DGCA before the consultation was over.

Some points were as follows:

• Non requirement of a medical certificate for disabled passengers to fly as disability is definitely not equal to illness;
• If requested, the airlines should make available the disabled person’s own wheelchair during disembarking form the flight so that they can transfer from the aisle chair straight on to their own wheelchair without needing to use the airline’s wheelchair if the disabled person so desires;
• Only people who are trained to assist disabled people and handle wheelchairs should be designated to do so. This is especially important since a lot of disabled people narrate terrible experiences of rough handling at the airport and report some accidents and several near-falls due to the negligence of untrained assistance summoned by the airlines;
• All airlines to train their customer services staff, check-in staff and other ground assistance staff in ‘disability awareness’ so that they are sensitised to the needs of the disabled people;
• The cabin crew should be expected to escort the elderly and people with reduced mobility from their seat to the toilet and back. Cabin crew should be able to assist people with reduced mobility (including wheelchair users) in transferring between seats, aisle chair and wheeled till the toilet commode. Cabin crew must also be trained in manually assisting (including assisting in transferring and carrying) persons with reduced mobility during emergency evacuations;
• Airlines should only require an escort or companion when it is clear that a disabled person is not self-reliant.

We reviewed the CAR document online, post the incident that happened with Mr Ranjan and were horrified to see that not only has DGCA taken no note of the above mentioned recommendations sent in by us but instead has not made the draft CAR for Carriage of Physically Challenged Passengers a part of the main CAR document at all. Was it all just an eyewash then? Clearly they had all the recommendations for avoiding this incident but all the red tape and corruption has only helped push this matter to the bottom.

I am not trying to put all the blame on the office of DGCA alone. The airlines who are charging the same fare to a disabled passenger have a moral obligation to provide same standard of service to the disabled. While they boast about acquiring the latest passenger crafts, providing high standards of service, low cost deals etc., they have been unable to provide simple things like ‘sensitisation training’ to the staff and develop a well researched internal ‘protocol for assisting disabled passengers’.

If one was to visit the airline website, one will notice that all these requirements that they have attached to a disabled person travelling are mostly not mentioned there. How is then, a passenger with disability expected to know of what to face when he/she may arrive at the airport, all this when airlines regularly boast of e-check-ins and other such services to enhance customer satisfaction and ease of flying.

When it comes to feedbacks and complaints redressal, the railways probably score much better than the airlines, even with the strongly proclaimed (mandatory) Citizens Charter in place. Viewing one such charter (Air Sahara) on their website, the only relevant piece of information I noticed was their claim that there was some Grievance Redressal Mechanism in place and they resolve queries within 48 hrs or so. The name of the person responsible or the email address where such complaints can be sent was obviously missing. The phrase Citizens Charter, which has more weight than meaning, is usually a document in place just to avoid legal dramas.

I will like you to put yourself in the shoes of Mr Rajan for just a moment and try and relive the incident as narrated. I am sure you feel outraged, angry and even helpless that even in the present democratic India you can be so humiliated and the nexus responsible for this gets away scot free. This incident will soon be lost or overshadowed by a new one, we will all forget Mr Rajan, but I appeal to you that even if you forget Mr Rajan, do not lose the sensitivity towards his ignominy.

Shivani Gupta is Co-Founder/Access Consultant, AccessAbility.
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