American Airlines fined $50M for not helping disabled passengers, damaging wheelchairs

American Airlines will have to pay a multi-million-dollar fine for not helping passengers with disabilities and for damage that occurred to wheelchairs.

The federal government fined the airline $50 million for not providing wheelchair assistance to people with disabilities. In some cases, passengers were injured the Department of Transportation said, but did not give an exact number of injured people, The Associated Press reported.

There were “cases of unsafe physical assistance that at times resulted in injuries and undignified treatment of wheelchair users, in addition to repeated failures to provide prompt wheelchair assistance,” the Department of Transportation said, according to The New York Times.

American Airlines will receive a $25 million credit for making improvements to the handling of wheelchairs along with compensation it made to passengers.

The fine was in response to an investigation launched after complaints filed against American Airlines by the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

In one case a video shows an airline worker sliding a wheelchair down a chute on the jetway, flipping over the end and sliding across the concrete.

The Times reported that American Airlines employees dropped a passenger on the floor while transferring from an aisle wheelchair to her seat. Another passenger who uses a powered wheelchair said the chair was so damaged that he had to use a broken wheelchair for a month until his was replaced.

The Department of Transportation said that American Airlines mishandled more than 10,760 wheelchairs and mobility scooters from 2019 to 2023. Southwest Airlines was the only company that had more issues with wheelchair handling what more than 11,100 incidents. United Airlines was fined in 2016 $2 million for violating laws that protect passengers with disabilities. That fine was reduced to $700,000 once credits were applied.

After American Airlines spent $175 million for infrastructure and training to help people with disabilities it said it has had a more than 20% drop in incidents, or less than one in every 1,000 customers who need wheelchair assistance filing a complaint, the AP reported.

“Despite these improvements, there are instances where the service the airline provides is disrupted, untimely, or results in harm to the passenger or their equipment,” American said in a statement to CNN. “American takes all these complaints and claims seriously and works hard to remediate them.”

The federal government requires airlines to return mobility devices to customers quickly after a flight lands and ensure they are not damaged. They are also required to help passengers with disabilities navigate airports and on and off planes.

If wheelchairs are damaged by an airline, the company is required to pay for repairs or replacement, but the passenger may be without their chair for weeks.

“One traveler with a disability told us in her words, ‘I was made to feel like a piece of luggage, so I do not fly anymore,’” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, according to CNN. “The bottom line is that the era of tolerating the poor treatment of wheelchair users on airplanes is over.”

Carl Blake, Paralyzed Veterans of America’s CEO said, “We are confident this unprecedented enforcement will make it clear to the entire airline industry that passengers with mobility disabilities deserve to travel with the same level of safety and dignity as everyone else,” the Times reported.

The DOT said other airlines are also being investigated over similar claims that led to the American Airlines fine, CNN reported.

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