The Transportation Division stated Wednesday that “in some cases,” wheelchair customers have been injured, however it didn’t give a quantity.
American stated it has made vital investments to enhance the dealing with of wheelchairs. The airline can be credited $25 million, or half of its civil penalty, for these investments and compensation paid to affected passengers, based on a consent order.
The incidents raised by the Transportation Division occurred between 2019 and 2023.
The investigation was prompted partially by three formal complaints the Paralyzed Veterans of America filed in opposition to American.
Investigators additionally seized on video of an incident at Miami Worldwide Airport final yr. Staff slid a wheelchair down a baggage ramp. It crashed into the underside of the chute, flipped over and skittered throughout the concrete.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated American Airways “appeared to be one of the worst offenders,” however the issues that investigators discovered “are not confined to one airline.” He stated the division is conducting comparable investigations into different airways, however he wouldn’t identify them.
“The era of tolerating poor treatment of wheelchair users on airplanes is over,” Buttigieg declared to reporters.
From 2019 by 2023, American mishandled greater than 10,760 wheelchairs and mobility scooters, based on Transportation Division figures. Solely Southwest Airways, at greater than 11,100, had extra incidents. Spirit Airways had the best proportion of errors in a number of of the years, based on the division.
American stated it has invested greater than $175 million this yr on infrastructure, coaching and different steps to enhance the journey expertise for folks with disabilities.
American stated it has minimize its fee of mishandling wheelchairs and energy scooters by greater than 20%, and fewer than one in each 1,000 prospects who ask for wheelchair help wind up complaining to the airline.
The punishment for American is much extra extreme than the Transportation Division meted out to different airways that it decided had violated legal guidelines defending vacationers with disabilities. The earlier document penalty was $2 million in opposition to United Airways in 2016, which was diminished to $700,000 after United obtained credit score for compensating passengers and different spending.
Division officers stated the scale of the tremendous in opposition to American mirrored the massive variety of incidents, which included damaging wheelchairs or taking too lengthy to return them to passengers after flights.
Federal rules require airways to return wheelchairs and scooters to prospects rapidly and undamaged after flights, and to assist passengers with disabilities get round airports and get on and off planes. Airways are required to pay for repairs or alternative of broken wheelchairs, however advocates say that may nonetheless go away customers and not using a appropriate strategy to get round for weeks.
