Sophie Morgan: ‘Rights for disabled travellers don't exist in the air'

Times

4 days ago

After nine months of consultations, the government's report on accessible air travel has finally landed. However, rather than setting out a clear, enforceable path forward, it amounts to little more than a polite list of vague recommendations, leaving the industry under no real obligation to change.
The Department for Transport's Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, chaired by the former Paralympian and crossbench peer Baroness Grey-Thompson, was formed late last year in response to mounting public pressure over the mistreatment of disabled airline passengers. Comprising representatives of carriers and airports and disability advocates, the working group was tasked with making recommendations aimed at helping to break down the barriers to air travel.
At the time there had been several news stories involving disabled passengers left on planes for hours or complaining about having their dignity stripped away during their journeys, as well as expensive wheelchairs returned damaged or destroyed. My documentary, Fight to Fly, exposing the reality that wheelchair users face when flying, had just aired on Channel 4. The disabled community's rallying cry was loud and clear: enough is enough.
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The report, published on July 16, lays out suggestions including mandatory disability-awareness training for staff (ideally delivered by individuals with disabilities), clearer (and more accessible) booking and complaints information, improved real-time communication during travel disruptions, and more consistent and improved handling of mobility aids. It also calls for each airport to create a publicly available access guide, systems to meet digital-accessibility standards and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to take a stronger oversight role. The report also highlights the need to improve support for passengers with non-visible disabilities, such as neurodivergence or chronic fatigue conditions, and to tailor assistance to passengers' needs accordingly.
These recommendations are all necessary improvements and urgently needed, and — if implemented and adequately resourced — could begin to make a real difference. However, for all its well-meaning proposals, there is one glaring problem: a lack of authority. Look closely and you will see that these recommendations carry no deadlines, legal weight and or consequences for failure. This is merely a list of actions that the industry is being encouraged — not mandated — to take.
Unfortunately, it's a cycle we've seen too many times — disabled people share painful, personal testimonies, the government convenes a group, the group drafts recommendations, the industry promises to do better and yet nothing fundamentally changes.
We saw it with the Aviation 2050 consultation launched in December 2018. This explicitly acknowledged that 'six in ten disabled travellers say they find flying and using airports difficult' and proposed stronger enforcement powers for the CAA. Six years later we are still waiting for these powers to be handed to the regulator.
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Then in 2023 came the CAA's Airline Accessibility Performance Framework consultation, hailed as a breakthrough, with proposals for public performance ratings, clearer rules on assistance dogs and mobility aids and (again) benchmarks for booking, boarding and complaints procedures.
In the nine months since the Task and Finish Group was formed, my campaign group, Rights on Flights, has received more than 100 new complaints. And these are not merely grumbles from disgruntled holidaymakers, they are distress calls from people with disabled family members who have been denied safe travel, people on business trips whose assistive equipment has gone missing mid-journey and couples whose honeymoons have been derailed by broken promises and systems. These are violations of our human rights and, worryingly, not isolated incidents.
Last month the BBC journalist and wheelchair user Frank Gardner was left stranded for 95 minutes while waiting for a lift to take him off a British Airways flight at Heathrow. A similar thing happened to me in May when ground handlers misplaced my wheelchair after unloading it from the hold, leaving me on board for more than 90 minutes while waiting for it to be found and returned to me. The sense of abandonment is visceral — you feel invisible and helpless.
Also last month Heathrow was officially downgraded by the CAA to a rating of 'needs improvement' for its treatment of disabled passengers — one level above 'poor'. In practical terms this means that the airport is failing us, yet there are no fines, penalties or legal consequences — merely a press release, perhaps a public slap on the wrist then business as usual. In a country that claims to be a global leader in human rights, this is nothing short of a national disgrace.
Here lies the root of the problem: the UK's approach to accessible air travel relies more on recommendations than regulation. Compare this with the stance in the US, where the Air Carrier Access Act — in place since 1986 — prohibits airlines from discriminating against passengers with disabilities. That means, for example, if your wheelchair is damaged during a flight the airline must repair or replace it, and if assistance is denied, you can file a complaint with the Department of Transportation and airlines may face legal and financial repercussions. The US system is not perfect, but it's miles ahead of the UK's soft-touch approach.
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To its credit, the latest report does gesture towards the need for legal reform. In its final section, titled The Way Forward, the group reaches the soft consensus that the government should consider revising existing legislation. Here it reaches the most powerful point: official recognition that the system is failing and that new laws are the only answer. But did we need nine months of talks to determine this?
As the founder of Rights on Flights I speak for a community routinely humiliated for daring to fly. We are the only marginalised group in this country whose rights do not exist while in the air. These recommendations offer a framework upon which to act, but we cannot waste any more time in consultation.
There is no question that the airline industry has long been aware of the challenges faced by the disabled community, yet it still cowers behind a government seemingly more inclined to cover for it than correct it. This cannot continue.
Ignoring the urgent need for fairer, more robust legislation that would elevate the most recent recommendations to a legally binding status would be akin to government abdicating responsibility to protect the rights — and lives — of disabled flyers. The time to act is long overdue. Sophie Morgan is a TV presenter, travel writer, disability rights advocate and the founder of Rights on Flights (rightsonflights.com)
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By Ben Clatworthy, Transport and Travel Correspondent
Travel for disabled people can be 'catastrophic', resulting in broken equipment, missed flights and being forgotten on planes.
Those are the findings of the government task force, and I couldn't agree more. I've seen it first hand. My brother, Stefan, has cerebral palsy and can't walk or talk, and the way that I've seen him treated at times has been heart-breaking.
It is not only the aviation industry at fault. He's been turned away from buses because the lift to the curb is broken and black cabs because drivers can't be bothered to get their ramp out. When it comes to trains, he has been left stranded because despite booking help with the Passenger Assistance app no one has turned up at his station to help.
Lifts at railway stations are often out of service, with barely more than a battered sign to inform passengers. Stefan missed seeing a musical in London for my birthday a few years ago because everything imaginable went wrong, culminating in the hotel having overbooked its disabled-friendly rooms.
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Flying can be very stressful, with his wheelchair sent to baggage reclaim and unreliable high lifts — the machine used to reach the plane door when there is no boarding bridge. Airport staff are often poorly trained and cabin crew surly at the perceived inconvenience that disabled people pose.
But travel can also be wonderful, with kind crew and jolly staff. In Stefan's lifetime we've seen huge advances in what is possible, and the experience broadens his horizons. We've been on safari in South Africa with a specialist adaptive tour operator during which a giraffe sniffed Stefan's head and I watched him smile from ear to ear for a week. He also skis using a sit-ski — a bucket seat attached with suspension to a pair of skis, piloted by an instructor behind him who steers.
This summer he has planned a grand adventure with his carers and dog, driving around France and camping by lakes and in the mountains. When he was born 30 years ago not many French campsites had the facilities they offer today that enable him to explore. It might not be perfect, but I rarely see him happier than when he's away on holiday.