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| TX: 19.12.03 – UNITED AIRLINES FINED A MILLION DOLLARS FOR BREAKING DISABILITY RIGHTS LAWS WHILE CAMPAIGNERS CONDEMN TRANSPORT ACCESS IN BRITAIN |
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| PRESENTER: JOHN WAITE WAITE Earlier this month a disabled man supported by the Disability Rights Commission took Ryanair and Stansted airport to court. Bob Ross believes they treated him unfairly because he was charged £18 for the use of a wheelchair to get him from the check-in desk to the aeroplane. A judgement's expected in the New Year. In America however, another airline - United - has been fined, over a million dollars, for breaking federal disability laws over its treatment of wheelchair users and Sam Poberesky, who's assistant general council for aviation enforcement at the US Department of Transportation joins us now on the phone from the States. A million dollar fine for United Mr Poberesky, why so much? POBERESKY It was as large as it was because it involved numerous violations by the airline with respect to our in-planing, de-planing and connecting assistance requirements. WAITE And this of course isn't the first time airlines in the States have been fined large amounts is it? POBERESKY No it's not. In the past year we've had 11 cease and desist orders issued and those orders assessed several penalties of over five and a half million dollars. WAITE Now what effect do you think these fines have, is there any evidence they're encouraging airlines to improve their service to disabled passengers? POBERESKY Well we're sure it's going to result in improved services. The large portion of the fines are being used by the airlines themselves to improve their service to disabled air travellers, it's a little bit too early for us to tell in our statistics - our complaints statistics - whether there is improvement as yet. WAITE And just spreading it out a little bit, what rights do American disabled people have to access public transport more generally? POBERESKY We have several laws that protect disabled travellers. In the airline area there's a statute known as the Air Carrier Access Act and there are regulations issued under that act. There are two other statutes that protect travellers and other modes of transportation, the main one is the Americans with Disabilities Act, which applies to ground type transportation and there's a law called Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act which has resulted in improved access through grant programmes that the federal government administers. WAITE Things like every train must have an accessible carriage - that sort of thing? POBERESKY Yes, trains have to be accessible and mass transit systems have to be accessible and bus systems in cities have to be accessible. WAITE Sam Poberesky thank you very much indeed. Well Andy Rickell, who's director of the British Council of Disabled People, was listening to that. Andy, Americans obviously have pretty strong laws on transport access, what's the situation at the moment here? RICKELL Well sadly we've got the Disability Discrimination Act. With regards boats and aircraft there's no requirement for fair access, so organisations like Ryanair feel okay about doing what they've done. And for instance a disabled woman was prevented from using an aisle seat because she was a fire risk. As regards some of the other forms of transport - trains, well new trains should be accessible but train makers can still apply for exemption from that requirement and there's no end date for existing ones. So some disabled people are still left in the guard's van, if they can get on at all. WAITE And what about the tube system too - that's pretty bad for disabled people isn't it? RICKELL Well yes, I mean the tube system is pretty much a joke really. I mean one of the reasons we never hold our meetings in London is because of the tube system and the very poor public transport in London in terms of accessibility. WAITE But of course the Government announced earlier this month a new draft disability bill and they say this will improve disabled people's access to transport but you're not happy with that - why not? RICKELL Not at all. The bill would mean that services associated with transport, other than actually in a vehicle, must be made accessible but there's no definite change in the requirement for the vehicle itself to be accessible or services delivered in it, which is obviously the fundamental point about transport. Now the new law will allow the Government to insist on accessible transport at some point in the future but they won't say when because they're not instantly inclined to do that. WAITE Maria Eagle, the minister for disabled people, says - I mean there needs to be a balance here between wanting to have access and of course the costs of making all those changes, that's why they can't give a date now for - an end date to transport - to full transport access, it will be expensive to make all these changes. Doesn't she have a point? RICKELL Well let's put it another way. Disabled people should have the fundamental basic right to free movement like practically everybody else does in the country. And it's a balance of rights between their rights and the rights of transport providers not to have to bear that cost or fare payers not to have to pay that cost or the taxpayer to have to bear that cost. It's a balance of rights and the issue is that most of those other people have the right to this basic ability to move about but disabled people don't, therefore it's disabled people who are most disadvantaged and the Government should be using the law to balance that disadvantage. WAITE Andy Rickell of the British Council of Disabled People thanks very much. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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