Lehigh Valley International Airport is again hosting an event to help people with autism or other developmental disabilities navigate taking a flight before they get to the airport to travel.

The airport in Hanover Township, Lehigh County and the Arc of Lehigh and Northampton Counties are hosting their fifth annual “Wings for All” event at 9 a.m. May 11th.

Families can register for the event here.

“Wings for All” is a national airport rehearsal program produced by The Arc of the United States, and is designed for people on the autism spectrum or those with other intellectual or developmental disabilities.

The event is very popular, and more than 200 people have participated over the years. The event is a collaboration between The Arc, Allegiant Air and the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority, which operates the airport.

Participants practice parking in the airport lot, checking in at a ticket gate, going through TSA and waiting to board. Organizers do not avoid crowd situations, in the hopes families can see potential triggers before they plan a trip.

The participants board an Allegiant plane and sit through the flight instructions, about 15 or 20 minutes on the plane. Afterwards, there is a reception.

Last year, officials debuted the new sensory room off the Wilfred M. “Wiley” Post departure concourse at LVIA, for passengers with intellectual or developmental disabilities, such as autism.

It has specialized flooring, low-frequency lighting, a mounted projector and other sensory equipment.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.

There is an old piece of advice that prevails when it comes to air travel: If you dress professionally, arrive early, and enquire ever so politely, you might just be that lucky person who gets bumped from the doldrums of economy class to the perks of premium, business, or first class. 

However, if you’ve been on a plane in the last decade, you might’ve noticed: Air travel has changed quite a bit. The glamour and personalized service has been replaced by algorithms, surcharges, and a de-bundling of even the most basic of services. Free upgrade? A more realistic aspiration might be a free ginger ale after takeoff.

“Airlines have their upgrade process down to a science,” Emily McNutt, global news editor for the aviation website The Points Guy, told Quartz. “Just because you’re wearing a suit doesn’t mean you’ll get an upgrade when you approach the gate agent. Because of things like airline elite status, upgrades often happen for those who are most loyal to the carrier.”

BUDAPEST, Hungary – The alleged ISIS commander charged here last week with taking part in 20 beheadings obtained a special refugee passport in Greece that gave him air travel access to much of Europe, according to Gyorgy Bakondi, a senior advisor to Hungary’s prime minister’s office.

The revelation about the bestowal of such refugee benefits on an accused ISIS commander raises questions about terrorist exploitation of the so-called refugee “right to travel” embossed in a 1951 international treaty, allowing those approved for refugee status to move about freely in Europe and elsewhere.

It remains unclear exactly which refugee passport program might have been used by “F. Hassan,” as the Hungarian government has dubbed the 27-year-old Syrian now under arrest in Budapest. Bakondi wasn’t sure.

New United Nations-European Union Passports for Refugees Program in Greece

But Hassan likely was a beneficiary of the new “European Qualifications for Passports for Refugees” program, which the United Nations Human Rights Commission and European Union’s Council of Europe implemented in Greece in late 2017 and expanded last year. According to its website, the program enables passport recipients to travel to eight countries in Europe and also Canada; the United States is not among the listed countries.

Recipients are chosen based on education levels, language proficiency, and work experience as a means to improve chances to match such candidates to specialized employment.

A Reuters news report quoted Hungarian prosecutors as saying that Hassan traveled to a number of European countries prior to landing in Hungary, although those countries were not identified and his activities in them were not detailed.

Bakondi told PJ Media the suspect did use his real name to apply for refugee status after traveling to Greece among migrants leaving Turkey. But he almost certainly too would have been required to truthfully state on refugee applications whether he had been involved with terrorist groups or fought in Syria.

Greek authorities eventually granted Hassan refugee status, which entitles migrants to obtain refugee travel documents. Hassan eventually landed at the airport in Budapest last December with an unidentified woman whom Hungarian authorities found to be carrying a false passport, Bakondi said.

The woman was deported to Greece because of the false passport, but Hassan was prosecuted and convicted of human smuggling, given a suspended 18-month sentence, and ordered expelled for three years.

While he was awaiting deportation in a Hungarian center, Belgian intelligence provided Hungary with informant-based information that Hassan had committed atrocities as an “emir” on behalf of ISIS, to include personally cutting off the heads of victims, Bakondi said.

How did Hassan Evade United States-Assisted Vetting in Greece?

The arrest of Hassan also raises the question of whether Greece, as a key refugee transit country, is properly vetting higher risk migrants for potential ties to ISIS before granting refugee status and conferring its benefits. The United States has reportedly been assisting Greece, to some extent, in vetting incoming migrants and refugees to determine whether any are terrorists.

Starting in 2014, hundreds of thousands of migrants from 103 countries began pouring into Greece on their way to more prosperous EU countries, often along the so-called “Balkan Route” that leads from Greece to Hungary. U.S. homeland security agencies, starting in 2018, provided equipment and training to Greek security agencies to begin collecting biometrics information such as fingerprints and retinal scans at at least 30 common points of refugee entry.

In 2015, Hungary closed its borders and built fencing, prompting other countries in the region to do the same, effectively reducing the overland migration flow along the route to a trickle. But its airports would remain vulnerable to those given lawful refugee status.

On Global Guard for Escaping ISIS Fighters and Sympathizers

The global intelligence community and Western law enforcement have been on heightened alert since the collapse of the ISIS quasi-state in Syria and Iraq sent tens of thousands of fighters and sympathizers fleeing, many to Europe, where some have committed a number of terror attacks.

Kurdish rebels and Iraqi forces have been capturing thousands of ISIS fighters and their families as the caliphate succumbed to brute military encirclements before and since the October 2017 fall of Raqqa, the putative capital. Others are presumed to be holed up in remnant pockets surrounded by hostile paramilitary forces.

A few senior leaders have been caught in intelligence dragnets or killed in airstrikes; others are presumed to have escaped to places farther away while the getting was still good. Some ISIS commanders were recently caught posing as war refugees about to embark on a rickety boat to Greece.

Follow Todd Bensman on Twitter @BensmanTodd

The relationship between Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, which has set the global standard in aviation safety for decades, will come under unprecedented scrutiny this week after two deadly airline crashes.

Both accidents involved a Boeing jet green-lighted by the U.S. regulator, which relied heavily on safety assessments made by Boeing employees.

In a startling break from the past, other nations and airlines grounded the Boeing 737 Max en masse after the second fatal crash this month while the same model of plane continued to carry tens of thousands of passengers a day in the United States.

This week, Congress joins the investigation into Boeing and the FAA. On Wednesday, the Senate aviation subcommittee will examine how the FAA oversees safety in the commercial aviation industry.

The acting FAA chief is scheduled to testify. So is the Transportation Department’s inspector general, who is conducting a separate probe of the FAA’s decision to approve the Boeing 737 Max aircraft, the type of plane that crashed in Indonesia in October, and then in Ethiopia two weeks ago.

The U.S. House plans to hold its own hearings and The Associated Press has reported that the Justice Department is also investigating.

At the very least, it looks like Boeing and the FAA are going to be under more intense scrutiny for some time.

For decades, the FAA has relied heavily on safety certifications performed by employees of aircraft manufacturers, whose work is overseen by the FAA.

The FAA defends this delegation of work, saying it improves safety by involving more skilled professionals into the review of what companies do. Agency officials stress that the last fatal crash of a U.S. airliner took place a decade ago.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the FAA arrangement with manufacturers “safety on the cheap,” and said he wants to know more about the role that Boeing employees played in the FAA’s decision to certify the Max.

The agency concedes that it doesn’t have resources to keep pace with growth in the aviation industry. Outside experts say the FAA is overmatched — it can’t pay enough to attract and keep people with the technical expertise to regulate such a complex industry.

“It’s a money thing, and they don’t have the money to do all the kinds of oversight,” said Todd Curtis, a former Boeing Co. safety engineer and creator of airsafe.com, a website that focuses on airline safety.

With the Max, Boeing created an automated flight-control system that had never been used before; it can direct the nose of the plane down if sensor readings indicate the plane may be about to stall, or lose aerodynamic lift from the wings. The interaction between pilots and that automated system is now at the center of the investigation into both crashes.

According to published reports, high-ranking FAA officials were unaware of Boeing’s stall-protection system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. Lawmakers are likely to ask who within FAA knew about the software and whether they failed to grasp its significance.

Flight safety regulators worldwide have followed the lead of the FAA for decades, but not this time. China, whose airlines have more Max jets than any other country, grounded the plane one day after the crash in Ethiopia. Others including the European Union and Canada followed quickly, citing a need for caution. That left the U.S. standing alone in allowing passengers to keep flying on the Max.

President Donald Trump announced the grounding of the Boeing plane on the afternoon of March 13, three days after the crash in Ethiopia. The FAA said the planes were being parked because of “newly refined satellite data” and evidence collected at the crash site. Satellite information showed the planes that crashed had similar flight paths — erratic rates of alternately climbing and descending almost immediately after takeoff.

Acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell said the agency grounded the plane as soon as it had data to support the decision.

Lawmakers will want to know whether the FAA’s delay exposed tens of thousands of passengers to unnecessary risk.

Proposed new flights to Japan lead this week’s air travel news in the meetings and events industry. 

Delta, AA Propose New Flights to Japan

This week both American Airlines and Delta announced their intention to apply for additional flights to Tokyo’s Haneda airport. American said that the application will cover additional service from Dallas – Fort Worth, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The airline currently operates one daily flight between Los Angeles and Haneda, a service that began in 2016. The proposal would add one additional service from Los Angeles, which American says will improve connection options for customers, as well as new flights from Dallas and Las Vegas. The new service will operate as part of American’s Pacific joint business with Japan Airlines. 

Delta’s application, meanwhile, covers daily daytime service between Haneda and Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta and Portland, as well as twice-daily service out of Honolulu. The proposed routes would be the only direct service currently offered by U.S. carriers out of Seattle, Portland, Atlanta and Detroit, and they would add to the carrier’s existing service from Minneapolis – St. Paul and Los Angeles. Pending government approval, the new routes would launch in 2020. 

The two applications are the result of an agreement reached last month between the United States and Japan to expand access at Haneda, a deal that will open up to 12 additional daytime slot pairs for operations by U.S. carriers. 

Alaska Airlines to Open New SFO Lounge

Also on the West Coast, this week Alaska Airlines unveiled plans for a new 8,500-square-foot, top floor lounge at San Francisco International Airport. Set to open in 2020, the new lounge will be located in Terminal 2, offering guests sights of the Bay and the runway, as well as a number of food and beverage options, including a tapas bar in the afternoon and evening. Made-to-order meals will also be available for purchase. The move is part of the airline’s ongoing investment in its lounge experience, which will also include refreshes of its lounges in Portland, Anchorage, Los Angeles and Seattle. 

AA Releases Summer Charlotte Schedule

In other domestic travel news, this week American Airlines released its summer schedule for its Charlotte hub, which will include more than 700 daily flights by the end of this year. Notable new flights will include two daily flights to Baltimore, two to Fort Lauderdale, one to Orlando and one to Newark. The airline also plans to increase its Chicago O’Hare service to 10 daily flights, Los Angeles to eight and New York – JFK and Newark to up to 16 daily flights. The airline will also launch new long-haul international service to Munich on March 30, as well as eight additional new routes this year: to Erie, PA, in May; and to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and Traverse City, MI in June. This week also saw the reopening of the airport’s refreshed Admiral’s Club. 

More New Flights in Europe and the Caribbean

In Europe, this week saw low-cost carrier Norwegian report that, in 2018, it became the largest non-North American airline to serve the New York and New Jersey area, overtaking British Airways. The airline carried over 2 million passengers in 2018, falling 50,000 passengers short of being tied with Air Canada for the largest international airline to serve New York City. 

Also this week Paris-based XL Airways announced it will move its flights from New York – JFK to Newark Liberty starting June 3 and combine its operations with its 100 percent business class sibling airline, La Compagnie. That airline has been operating out of Newark since 2018. 

Finally, in the Caribbean, this week St. Maarten welcomed the inaugural flight on JetBlue’s new daily service from Fort Lauderdale. 

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By Jason Neely and Jamie Freed

ADDIS ABABA/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Boeing Co will brief more than 200 global airline pilots, technical leaders and regulators this week on software and training updates for its 737 MAX aircraft, as Ethiopian Airlines expressed confidence in the planemaker despite a recent crash.

The carrier will work with Boeing and other airlines to make air travel safer, its chief executive, Tewolde Gebremariam, said, after regulators this month grounded the worldwide fleet of the aircraft following a crash that killed 157 people.

“Despite the tragedy, Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines will continue to be linked well into the future,” he said in a statement on Monday. “Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing. They have been a partner of ours for many years.”

However, many questions on the 737 MAX “remain without answers”, Tewolde added, and a spokesman for the carrier said it had no “immediate plans” to attend the Boeing session, without giving further details.

Wednesday’s meeting is a sign that Boeing is nearing completion on a planned software patch required to return the grounded fleet to commercial service, though it will still need approval from regulators.

The session in Renton, Washington is part of an effort to reach all current, and many future, 737 MAX operators and their home regulators to discuss software and training updates to the jet, Boeing said in a statement.

The 737 MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with orders worth more than $500 billion at list prices.

Garuda Indonesia was invited to the briefing, Chief Executive Ari Askhara told Reuters on Monday. Last week, Indonesia’s national carrier said it planned to cancel its order for 49 737 MAX jets, citing a loss of passenger trust.

“We were informed on Friday, but because it is short notice we can’t send a pilot,” Askhara said, adding that the airline had requested a webinar with Boeing, only to be rejected.

A Boeing spokeswoman said the meeting formed part of a series of in-person information sessions.

“We have been scheduling, and will continue to arrange, additional meetings to communicate with all current, and many future, MAX customers and operators,” she said.

Garuda, which has only one 737 MAX, had been reconsidering its order before the Ethiopian crash, as had fellow Indonesian carrier Lion Air, which suffered a crash in October that killed all 189 aboard.

Boeing had informed the airline of the meeting but it might not attend, said Lion Air Managing Director Daniel Putut, who declined further comment.

Singapore Airlines Ltd said its offshoot, SilkAir, which operates the 737 MAX, had received an invitation to the meeting and would send representatives.

Representatives of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore will also attend, a spokeswoman for the regulator said.

Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, which, before the grounding, had been due to receive its first 737 MAX in April, said it planned to send pilots to Renton. South Korean low-cost carrier Eastar Jet will send two pilots, a spokesman said.

On Saturday, teams from the three U.S. airlines that own 737 MAX jets joined a session in Renton reviewing a planned software upgrade.

Flydubai representatives attended that session and some will also attend this week’s meeting, a spokeswoman for the Dubai-based airline said.

A U.S. official briefed on the matter on Saturday said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had not yet signed off on the software upgrade and training but aimed to review and approve them by April.

It remained unclear whether the software upgrade, called “design changes” by the FAA, will resolve concerns stemming from the investigation into the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash.

Tewolde, the airline’s chief executive, said until there were more answers about the 737 MAX, the planes should remain grounded, adding, “Putting one more life at risk is too much.”

The U.S. official said planned changes included 15 minutes of training to help pilots deactivate the anti-stall system known as MCAS in the event of faulty sensor data or other issues. It also included some self-guided instruction, the official added.

(Reporting by Jason Neely in Addis Ababa and Jamie Freed in Singapore; additional reporting by Cindy Silviana in Jakarta, Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Alexander Cornwell in Dubai, Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Jamie Freed; Editing by Michael Perry and Clarence Fernandez)

Credit: Annie Spratt/ Unsplash

by Gabriella Anaya | March 21, 2019

Do you travel often for work? Do you have a trip coming up for either leisure or family obligations? If you’re pregnant, these circumstances take on a whole new meaning. Not to worry, traveling while pregnant doesn’t have to be a daunting task and many women do it successfully. Whether you just found out you’re pregnant or you’re just about ready to pop we’ve got you covered on what you need to know. Here is what you need to know about air travel and pregnancy.

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Air Travel While Pregnant- What You Need to Know

Before 12 weeks

Some women may choose not to travel (if they can help it) during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. This is mostly attributed to the dreaded morning sickness that can ensue and even be heightened with air travel. Another reason that some women may be cautious about traveling by plane within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is the higher risk of miscarriage compared to the rest of pregnancy. The risk is present, however, whether you’ll be flying or not.

Mid-Pregnancy

Traveling during the second trimester of pregnancy would be the most comfortable option. The morning sickness has probably already subsided and you’re probably getting to know your pregnant self well enough to manage. As long as you have had a healthy pregnancy thus far, plane travel should be as much as a breeze as it could be.

28 weeks and beyond

Marking the start of your third trimester, at 28 weeks and further traveling by plane may be more uncomfortable, especially with anything longer than a couple of hours. As you approach closer to your due date, labor becomes more likely so you may want to keep your due date in mind, allowing for a generous time cushion. Small risks do blood clots are also something to keep in mind with long travels when pregnant so it is essential to take proper precautions as to not develop one.

The bottom line

As always, keep in close contact with either your doctor or midwife if you plan to travel. Travel is stressful for everybody and being pregnant, this stress may have a negative effect on you and baby. If your pregnancy has been healthy and complication-free it’s safe to say that any domestic plane travel shouldn’t cause problems.

Have you traveled by plane while pregnant? How was your experience? Let me know in the comments below.

Gabriella Anaya

News Editor | Limoges, France | Gabriellaanaya@raisevegan.com

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Flying is more popular than ever. Last year alone, worldwide passenger traffic jumped to 8.3 billion – a 7.5 percent increase from the year before – and aircraft movement rose 3 percent in the same period. With travel becoming more common around the world, airports are facing the difficult challenge of accommodating more travelers than ever before while avoiding investing in larger spaces or purchasing additional aircrafts. Physical infrastructure expansion is often not an option due to lack of land; not to mention large-scale construction projects take up valuable time, during which travel needs continue to evolve and expand.

The answer to moving a higher volume of passengers at faster speeds is to simplify the traveler experience. From walking into an airport, to arriving at a destination, technology will make the future of travel an easy and simplified process, allowing passenger traffic to flow and profits to roll in. While every airport recognizes this need to streamline, some fear easy airport experiences will come at the price of decreased safety. But security and simplicity do not have to be mutually exclusive for long. We are rapidly moving toward a future in which emerging technologies are solving the tug-of-war between the desire for simple, intuitive experiences, and increased security. These technologies are currently being rolled out around the world and will soon be a fundamental part of every airport, altering the way we experience air travel.

Here are the three areas of air travel that will be most affected by technology that ensures simultaneous passenger ease and safety:

Disrupting Security Lines with Biometric Scanners

Security lines are the number one way airports keep people safe – and slow them down. Airport security check points, while the most time-consuming and unsavory part of flying, serve a valuable purpose in ensuring all travelers remain safe from harm. These checkpoints cannot be removed entirely, but they must be reimagined if airports are going to continue increasing customer volume. TSA PreCheck has made a significant impact on efficiency in recent years, but the inconvenient process to achieve this status deters many passengers from taking advantage of the system. The solution in redesigning security check points is replacing the current system with biometric scanning technology.

Biometric technology offers facial, fingerprint, palm, voice, iris, and retina recognition capabilities that identify passengers with hyper accuracy. Combined with a database of biographic information on travelers that will flag any suspicious activity, these solutions allow people to step through security lines in literally a blink of an eye. Companies like CLEAR are already putting this technology to the test at over 30 airports worldwide, simultaneously improving safety measures and increasing checkpoint speed. The reliability of biometric scanning makes scanning IDs and boarding passes obsolete, opening up the possibility of airports eliminating the requirement for passengers to carry them completely.

Prioritizing Flight Landings with Voice Technology

Scheduling flight landings and take-offs is complicated business, involving many oscillating factors from the wind speeds to fuel levels. Luckily, automation technology is simplifying the process by proactively evaluating and ordering each flight. By deciphering all the data points involved with each flight, automation technology determines which flight can leave and arrive on which runway and at which time, cutting down on bottlenecks and unnecessary taxing on the ground. Besides speeding up the process and decreasing delays, this technology greatly enhances the safety of passengers just by analyzing the pilot’s voice.

Due to weather, scheduling, or personal reasons, pilots can experience high levels of stress in the air.

According to a recent account, pilots can even go without eating between back to back flights or work over 13-hour days. Using natural language processing (NLP) technology, solutions are actively being discovered that prioritize flights based on the tone and perceived anxiety level of a pilot’s voice, giving landing preference to a plane that may be at higher risk.

Navigating Baggage Claim with IoT Tracking

Anyone who has checked a piece of luggage knows the feeling of anxiously staring at the conveyor belt, waiting for the right suitcase to appear. But worrying about baggage safety will soon be a thing of the past. By retrofitting checked luggage with Internet of Things (IoT) enabled tags, passengers will be able to see exactly where their bags are moving from an app on their phones, tracking them from the moment they are out of sight, to picking them up at baggage claim. Imagine the peace of mind for passengers in being able to pin point their luggage, and decrease the time spent crowding around the conveyor belt.

IoT technology also has the power to help airport officials keep track of cargo, streamlining the ground handling system with greater visibility into the moving bags. Last year alone, cargo traffic rose 7.7 percent worldwide – making IoT solutions more needed than ever as airports manage a high volume of moving pieces on the ground. The sensors will also be able to detect temperature and humidity of these bags in transit, quickly identifying any luggage that could pose a threat.

These are just a few of the ways emerging technologies are greatly impacting both the safety and ease of air travel, making it possible for airports to continue to meet the demands of the growing number of passengers. Not only will IoT, NLP, and biometric solutions accommodate the already increasing passenger traffic, they will make flying so simple that it will attract new customers. In the future, it may even be considered easier to fly than take a train or car for mid-range distances. The future of technology-enabled, passenger-centric security and simplicity is on the horizon – and it will transform the way we think about flying for the better. 

In December 2017, Kaushik Kumar Majumdar, a person with 85% orthopaedic disability, was not allowed to board the Air India flight from Bengaluru to Kolkata. Why? He refused to remove the batteries from his electric wheelchair before putting it in the cargo hold.

In a petition to the Supreme Court, Kaushik pointed out that firstly, there was no specific guideline or legal requirement to remove all the wires since he had already disabled the battery from the main panel, and also that no one would be able to put the wires back together on reaching the Kolkata airport. He also said that the airline staff did not pay heed to his request and reportedly humiliated him for delaying the flight.  

On Friday, a Supreme Court bench has directed the central government and Air India to submit a response within eight weeks, framing appropriate policies to ensure people with disabilities (PwD) are able to use air transport with dignity.

The fight continues

While this directive is a welcome move, it brings to fore the same set of existing guidelines and concerns that people with disabilities and activists have been fighting for years.

In September 2011, GoAir offloaded a blind woman and her two children from boarding the flight from Mumbai. In May 2011, a blind woman was asked to disembark from a Mumbai-to-Goa Kingfisher Airlines flight.

In 2012, Jeeja Ghosh, who has cerebral palsy, was forcibly deboarded from Spice Jet as the crew feared her disability might pose a health risk during the course of the flight. “I was seething. I have never felt so insulted. The sheer insensitivity made me cry,” she had told The Telegraph then.

Following this, the Ministry of Civil Aviation constituted the Ashok Kumar Committee on March 22, 2012, to look into various issues relating to improving air travel for persons with disabilities and reduced mobility.

It observed that the 2009 Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) for Persons with Disability (PwD) and/or Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRMs) should be amended further to ensure they have access to, and enjoy air travel on an equal basis, without discrimination, with dignity, and in safety and comfort.

The Committee recommended certain measures, including allocation of responsibility between airports, airlines and other stakeholders to avoid delays and hardships to PwDs, standardising the equipment and other facilities in consultation with the Department of Disabilities Affairs, accessibility of the ticketing system and complaints and redress mechanism, and a Complaints Resolution Officer to hear grievances of persons with disabilities.

These guidelines, in fact, are what Kaushik has reiterated in his suggestions to the SC, to ensure the rights of a PwD are not violated: Framing appropriate policies, rules, guidelines, dedicated bodies to hear their grievances and to sensitise the authorities and staff members of airlines and airport.

While the report was meant to be the basis for the 2009 Civil Aviation Requirements of the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), the agency accepted only a few recommendations, points out Amba Salelkar, a disability rights activist and lawyer in Chennai. “The DGCA contended that they were coming up with a new CAR. But the activists on the panel pointed out that it was not in consonance with the Committee’s report,” she says.

Despite the clear set guidelines, the airlines, security services and the airport often pass the buck in instances involving PwD and PRMs, she says.

“The staff are not sensitised towards certain procedures. Instead of making access to airport and flight facilities a tedious process, policies should be formulated from the perspective of PwDs. Awareness, training and accountability by the airlines and aviation agencies are equally important. A person with disability cannot run to the Supreme Court every now and then, and the court cannot adjudicate the same direction each time,” says Amba.