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You’re listening to the Disability Law Lowdown, Show #32 with your host, Jacquie Brennan.

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Jacquie Brennan: This podcast is about the Air Carrier Access Act and its new regulations.

Today we’re going to cover the definition of disability, proof of disability, advance notice requirements, safety assistance, special charges for services and accommodations, restrictions and waivers and information for passengers prior to getting on the flight.

So this is about, as I said, the Air Carrier Access Act and new regulations whose purpose is to carry out the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 as amended went into effect on May 13, 2009. Both U.S. and foreign air carriers are prohibited from discriminating against air passengers on the basis of disability. Both U.S. and foreign air carriers are required to make aircraft, facilities and other services accessible. Air carriers must also take steps to accommodate passengers who have a disability.

The Air Carrier Access Act protects individuals with disabilities and under the ACAA and individual with a disability is a person who has a physical or mental impairment that, on a permanent or temporary basis, substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment.

Now, if you are a regular listener and you are familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, you might notice the ACAA definition of an individual with a disability is almost identical to the ADA definition. There’s one important difference, though. The ACAA covers even temporary disabilities.

Proof of disability: An airline carrier must not require any kind of proof as a condition for the provision of transportation except in some very limited circumstances. If a person is traveling on a stretcher or incubator, needs medical oxygen during a flight or if there’s reasonable doubt that the person can complete the flight safely without requiring extraordinary medical assistance during the flight, then the air carrier may require a written statement from a physician saying that the passenger is capable of completing the flight without requiring extraordinary medical assistance during the flight. That statement has to be dated within ten days of the initial departing flight.

The air carrier may also require such a written statement if the passenger has a communicable disease that could pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others on the flight. In that case, the physician’s statement should state that the disease or infection would not, under present conditions in the patient’s case, be communicable to other people during the normal course of a flight. It should also state what precautions should be taken to prevent transmission and it should be written within ten days of the flight for which it’s presented.

Advance notice: A carrier must not require a passenger with a disability advance notice that she or he will be traveling on a flight. However, if a passenger with a disability will require certain specific services then advance notice must be provided.

An air carrier may require a passenger with a disability who requires carrier-supplied in-flight medical oxygen to give up to seventy-two hours advance notice on international flights and forty-eight hours advance notice on domestic flights and check in one hour before the check-in time for the general public.

Forty-eight hours advance notice and check-in one hour before the regular check-in time for the general public is required to use a ventilator, respirator, CPAP machine or portable oxygen container, a POC.

An air carrier does not have to allow an incubator or a person who must travel on a stretcher on the plane, but if it chooses to do so, it can require forty-eight hours advance notice and check-in one hour before the regular check-in time for the general public. Also, air carriers do not have to provide a hook-up for a respirator, ventilator, CPAP machine or POC to the aircraft electrical supply, but if it chooses to do so, it can require forty-eight hours advance notice and check-in one hour before the check-in time for the general public.

AIr carriers can also require forty-eight hours advance notice and check-in one hour before the check-in time for the general public in order to receive any of the following: transportation for an electric wheelchair on aircraft with fewer than sixty seats, provision for hazardous materials packaging for batteries and other assistive devices that are required to have such packaging, accommodation for a group of ten or more individuals with a disability who make reservations and travel as a group, provision of an on-board wheelchair on an aircraft with more than sixty seats that does not have an accessible lavatory, transportation of an emotional support or psychiatric service animal in the cabin, transportation of a service animal on a flight scheduled to take eight hours or more, and accommodation of a passenger who has both severe vision and hearing impairments.

It’s up to the air carrier to provide the service or accommodation if the advance notice is given and to make sure that reservation and other administrative services ensure that, when any advance notice is given, the notice is communicated clearly and on time to the people who will be responsible for providing the service or accommodation.

Even if a passenger does not need advance notice or check-in requirements, the air carrier must still provide the service or accommodation if it can do so if it can do so by making reasonable efforts without delaying the flight.

Air carriers may not generally require that a passenger with a disability travel with another person as a condition of being able to have air transportation. However, passengers who fall into certain categories may be required to travel with a safety assistant if the air carrier determines that it’s essential for safety. The categories are: a person traveling in a stretcher or an incubator, a person who, because of mental disabilities, is unable to comprehend or respond appropriately to safety instructions from carrier personnel, a person with a mobility impairment so severe that the person is unable to physically assist in his or her own evacuation of the aircraft and a passenger who has both severe hearing and severe vision impairments if the passenger cannot establish some means of communication with personnel that is adequate to communicate safety instructions and allow the passenger to assist is his or her own evacuation of the aircraft.

If the passenger with a disability believes that she or he can travel independently but the air carrier disagrees, then the air carrier must not charge for the safety assistant’s transportation. The air carrier is not required to find or provide the safety assistant. If the passenger voluntarily agrees to travel with a personal care attendant or a safety assistant that the air carrier does not require, the air carrier may go ahead and charge for the transportation of that person.

Concern that a passenger with a disability might need help with personal care, like using the lavatory or eating, is not the basis for requiring that person to travel with a safety assistant. Air carriers have to make sure that personnel are trained about this. The air carrier is allowed to tell passengers that the air carrier personnel are not required to provided those kinds of services.

Now what about special charges for services and accommodations? Air carriers are not allowed to impose charges for providing facilities, equipment or services that the ACAA requires the carriers to provide to passengers with a disability. However, if a passenger must use more than one seat because of either the passenger’s size or their condition, like the use of a stretcher, then the carrier may charge for the extra seats. This is not considered a special charge.

If an air carrier has a special website for reservations and ticket purchases that is not accessible to people with certain disabilities, then it must allow those people with disabilities to make reservations and purchase tickets another way, such as by phone, without imposing additional charges. If there is a price discount that is available only for online purchases, it must provide the same discount to people with disabilities who cannot access that inaccessible website.

Air carriers must not impose restrictions on passengers with a disability that they do not impose on other passengers. This includes restricting passenger movement within the terminal, requiring passengers to stay in a holding area to get transportation services or accommodations, making passengers sit on blankets on the airplane, making passengers wear badges or other special ID like the airlines have for minor children who are traveling alone, or mandating separate treatment for passengers who have a disability.

Air carriers must not require passengers with a disability to sign any kind of release or waiver of liability in order to get transportation services. This includes waivers of liability for damage to or loss of wheelchairs or other assistive devices.

Finally, just a quick discussion about the information for passengers prior to the flight. Air carriers must provide the following kinds of information about the accessibility of aircraft expected to make a particular flight: it has to provide the specific locations of seats with movable armrests, and it must provide those by row and seat number, the specific location of the seats, but row and seat number, that the carrier does not make available to passengers with a disability, things like exit row seats, any aircraft-related limitations on the ability to accommodate passengers with a disability, including limitations on the availability of level entry boarding of the aircraft at any airport involved with the flight, any limitation on the availability of storage facilities in the cabin or bay, whether the aircraft has an accessible lavatory and the kinds of services for passengers with disabilities that are or are not available on flight.

Information and services must be available to people who use text telephone either through the carrier’s TTY, voice- relay or other technology. Air carriers must provide access to TTY users during the same business hours that telephone service is available to the general public. There can be no extra charge to the TTY users. Carriers must list their TTY number any place they list their phone number. If the carrier does not have a TTY, then it must state how TTY users can reach reservation and ticketing services such as through a voice-relay service.

This concludes part one of the Air Carrier Access Act new regulations. We will pick up with part two next time. Thanks for joining us.

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The Disability Law Lowdown is brought to you by the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers which are a network of ADA centers that provide training, technical assistance and materials on the ADA and other disability related laws. Funding for the Centers is provided by a grant from NIDRR, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. You can subscribe to the Disability Law Lowdown at our website at disabilitylawlowdown.com or on iTunes.



The Southwest and Rocky Mountain ADA Centers are part of a program of Independent Living Research Utilization at TIRR - Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, and is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. If you have questions about disability law or would like to request materials or training, please call 1-800-949-4232. This podcast is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works 2.5 License. For more information and transcripts, visit www.ada-podcast.com.