The 1986 Air Provider Accessibility Act requires airways to offer a wheelchair to passengers with disabilities at the airport. The problem: Many travelers are faking it, Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle says.
“There is enormous, rampant abuse of specific services. There are men and women applying wheelchair help who don’t require it at all,” Biffle said at a Wings Club luncheon on Thursday in New York.
He mentioned he experienced found Frontier flights the place 20 men and women have been brought to the airplane with wheelchairs, but only 3 wheelchairs had been utilised on arrival.
“We are healing so several people,” he joked.
Biffle was not chatting about travelers’ individual wheelchairs but fairly the services airways provide when tourists get there at the airport.
It charges the airline in between $30 and $35 each individual time a buyer requests a wheelchair, Biffle claimed, and abuse of the service sales opportunities to delays for tourists with legitimate require for support.
“Everyone should be entitled to it who requires it, but you park in a handicapped place they will tow your auto and fantastic you,” he instructed CNBC. “There should really be the identical penalty for abusing these products and services.”
Previously this year, the Transportation Section proposed stricter rules aimed at protecting against wheelchair harm by airport floor handlers and guaranteeing “prompt assistance” to vacationers with disabilities when having on and off the airplane.
