A Frontier Airlines plane is seen at Cancun International Airport, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Artur Widak | Nurphoto | Getty Images
The Air Transportation Access Act of 1986 requires airlines to provide wheelchairs to passengers with disabilities at airports, but the problem is that many travelers lie about it. Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said:
“There is widespread abuse of special services, used by people who don’t need wheelchair assistance at all,” Biffle said Thursday at a luncheon at New York’s Wings Club.
He said he has seen Frontier Airlines flights where 20 people were transported in wheelchairs upon departure, but only three were in wheelchairs upon arrival.
“We’re healing a lot of people,” he joked.
Biffle was not talking about travelers’ personal wheelchairs, but about the services airlines provide when travelers arrive at the airport.
Biffle said airlines charge $30 to $35 each time a passenger requests a wheelchair, and that abuse of the service is causing delays to travelers who really need assistance.
“Anyone who needs it should have the right to it, but if you park in a handicapped space, your car gets towed and you get fined,” he told CNBC. “There should be similar penalties for those who abuse these services.”
Biffle isn’t the only executive to complain about travelers falsely claiming they need wheelchairs at airports.
In July 2022, John Holland-Kaye, then CEO of London’s Heathrow Airport, told LBC radio that amid staffing shortages, some travellers were “using wheelchair support to get through the airport faster.”
“Using TikTok is one of the travel hacks people are recommending,” he said. “Don’t do that. We need to protect the service for those who need it most.”
John Morris, founder of WheelchairTravel.org and a double amputee, said there’s a reason some travelers may need a wheelchair on the way there but not on the way there: They might need help getting through a large airport like Atlanta or New York City, for example, but not a smaller one.
“Disability affects people in different ways,” he said.
“I think it’s fair to say that abusers should face some kind of punishment, but I don’t see how that can be done when disability is not accepted by society.” [always] It’s visible,” Morris said.
Earlier this year, the Department of Transport proposed tougher rules aimed at preventing damage to wheelchairs by airport ground staff and ensuring disabled travelers receive “prompt assistance” when getting on and off planes.