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Island airline tells disabled cancer survivor she’s too heavy to board with assistance

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Fiona MacKinnon, 54, claims she can no longer travel on a Loganair flight from Tiree to Glasgow for her regular cancer treatments. Fiona has dystonia, a neurological condition that severely restricts her mobility. She walks with the aid of crutches and uses a stairlift at home. This means she can’t climb the 12 steps to the Twin Otter Loganair plane at Tiree Airport.

The artist, who lives alone in Kirkapol, had previously used an S-Max stairclimber – a mechanised system that helps pull a wheelchair up a flight of stairs. But in February Fiona was told by Loganair that she could not use the device if she weighed more than the 120kg safety limit.

Read the rest on The Sunday Post.

Industry Urges Improved Disabled Access to Aircraft Cabins

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In the event that a wheelchair frame and restraint system can be certified, the challenge will then be finding a suitable space in the cabin, as Geraldine Lundy, passenger accessibility manager at Virgin Atlantic, explains.

“Regulations mean that you can’t put someone in a wheelchair at the door. And if you envisage how narrow the aisles are on any aircraft existing at the moment, you wouldn’t be able to fit the wheelchair down the aisle, so you would need to work with the manufacturers,” says Lundy. “The really good thing is that people are now working on it. I think it will happen but there is still a way to go.”

Lundy believes it could take another 10-15 years before passengers will be able to bring their own wheelchairs into the cabin and remain seated in them during flight. She says that PriestmanGoode’s Air Access concept, or another similar concept, “would be the most achievable next step.”

Read the rest at Aviation Week.

Recognising the impact of hidden disabilities on passenger confidence

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…Our industry needs to recognise how these hidden disabilities reduce passenger confidence in our ability to support them as they travel through the world’s airports.
In addition, a recent study in US identified that while there were procedures in place to help and protect people whose disabilities were visible, wheelchair users for example, no procedures existed to help and protect those whose disabilities were not immediately obvious. No-one had thought to factor them into evacuation plans, for example. Yet for a person with ASD, the airport environment is challenging at the best of times, let alone when there is also an emergency situation unfolding.

Read the rest at: https://www.internationalairportreview.com/article/69277/omniserv-hidden-disabilities/

Africa World Airlines allegedly prevents ‘cripple’ from boarding flight

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Ms Kriba, who walks with the aid of crutches, missed her flight to Kumasi from Accra as staff of the airline said the company’s policy does not accommodate persons who cannot board their planes without aid.

Attempts by a passenger to convince authorities to permit Ms Kriba board the flight proved futile.

Read the rest of the story at: https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/KIA-AWA-allegedly-prevents-cripple-from-boarding-flight-649091