American Airlines Paid $50 Million For How It Handled Disabled Passengers.

(VOR News) – On Wednesday, American Airlines paid a penalty of fifty million dollars levied by the United States of America Department of Transportation.

The Department of Transportation charged the airline with “numerous serious violations” of the laws safeguarding passengers with disabilities flying by aircraft.

Following an inquiry, the Department of Transportation (DOT) discovered breaches at American Airlines encompassing a four-year period, starting in 2019 and running through 2023. Following an investigation, the DOT found these infractions.

Along with reports of recurrent failures to offer timely wheelchair assistance, the United States Department of Transportation claims to have identified instances of “unsafe physical assistance that at times resulted in injuries and undignified treatment of wheelchair users.”

Americans had also handled hundreds of wheelchairs illegally, either by damaging them or by postponing their return, over the duration of the inquiry.

In a statement he issued, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said, “The era of tolerating poor treatment of airline passengers with disabilities is over.” This comment came from Buttigieg.

“American Airlines violated passengers with disabilities’ rights with this penalty.”

The Secretary of Transportation declared in his speech. We hope that by enforcing fines higher than the cost of operations for American Airlines, we will be able to influence industry behavior generally and stop such kinds of misuse from the starting point. This will be achieved with the aim of stopping such kinds of abuse.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) gathered dozens of advocates for persons with disabilities at a February meeting in Washington, District of Columbia, to investigate the prospect of a rule mandating American Airlines to enhance their performance.

Among those included in this group was Thomas Braddy, the National Council on Independent Living’s current director. “There was too much damage to my chair,” Braddy said during the hearing, “which is why I stopped flying.”

Apart from the fact that it stopped him from traveling with his wife whenever they traveled on holiday, he said his inability to fly had slowed down his professional development.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, representing Illinois, was a casualty of the Iraq War and lost both legs. She delivered a speech at the conference in which she examined the parallels between a wheelchair and a bodily part. “If this fails, you have caused my injury.”

Duckworth has documented that airlines often destroy wheelchairs—including her own as well as those of others. Duckworth claims they were able to destroy 892 wheelchairs in one month last year.

This was within the year before. ” Imagine for a moment that airlines had shattered 892 pairs of legs in just one month, and the average American found out about this. Though there have been none, it is natural to expect a lot of indignation.

During the announcement of the fine, the Department of Transportation (DOT) displayed an American Airlines employee putting a wheelchair down a baggage ramp in this footage taken at Miami International Airport. The DOT videotaped the clip.

American Airlines says it has long helped disabled people.

American Airlines has said this: This dedication Reportedly, it has spent $175 million this year on services, infrastructure, training, and new technology to help ease their path and move their specialist equipment. Reports state this.

According to a press release the company sent, the airline got more than eight million wheelchair assistance requests in 2023. According to corporate data, less than 0.1 percent of consumers reported having a complaint related to a disability.

“Today’s agreement reaffirms American’s commitment to taking care of all of our customers,” Julie Rath, senior vice president of American Transportation, said.

The Department of Transportation has said that the issues it discovered are not particular to American Airlines. The government claims that it is now looking at infractions of a like kind that have happened at other US airlines. These transgressions have happened all throughout the nation

SOURCE: NPR

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