United Airlines Apologized to Disabled Passenger Forced to Crawl From Airplane
A United passenger with cerebral palsy was forced to crawl from his airplane to the gate when the airline’s staff took away a special wheelchair needed for just such a case, reports the Los Angeles Times.
D’Arcee Neal was on a flight from San Francisco and urgently needed to use the restroom when the flight landed in Washington. A special wheelchair that fits in the airplane’s aisle that had been arranged for Neal was mistakenly removed by United’s staff.
“We’ve apologized to him for that delay,” the airline said. “We hope that all of our customers understand that this situation doesn’t reflect the level of service we provide to customers with disabilities each day.”
The Times report has a good rundown of the “growing problem” of complaints by disabled passengers over civil rights violations: according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, complaints this year are on pace to “surpass complaint totals for each of the last six years.”
Last year, 774 complaints were filed by disabled passengers with the U.S. Department of Transportation over civil rights violations, up 50% from the 519 complaints filed in 2009.
In the first six months of 2015, 459 complaints have been filed over civil rights violations of disabled passengers, putting the U.S. airline industry on pace to surpass last year’s total by 18%, according to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The Times is all over this problem—a 2014 study found that the Department of Transportation targets this kind of transgression with increased penalties:
The heftiest fines — nearly four times higher than the average penalty — were issued to airlines that neglected or mistreated disabled passengers, according to federal records.
United offered Neal $300 in compensation for their mistake.
