‘Every single case is one case too many’: Passengers with disabilities filed 200 complaints in 2023, WestJet CEO tells parliamentary committee

Passengers with disabilities filed roughly 200 complaints with WestJet final 12 months, a determine the airline’s CEO says he is “proud” to name a “small number.”

WestJet’s CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech advised a parliamentary committee learning accessibility within the airline business that 260,000 passengers with wheelchairs or different mobility gadgets flew on the airline in 2023. Though he says errors occur, von Hoensbroech advised the Transport, Infrastructure and Communities committee that the variety of complaints is low in comparison with the full variety of flights taken.

“Every single case is a case we investigate in order to improve our service because it is our mission to provide a good service,” he stated. “The percentage is low, it’s very very low. It’s 99.9 per cent of the guests that actually have a good experience but having said that every case is a case too many.”

von Hoensbroech apologized to passengers who “didn’t have a good travel experience” and has dedicated to “doing better.”

WestJet says it’s introducing quite a few modifications that it hopes will make flying smoother from new methods to make sure a mobility gadget at all times travels with the passenger to wrapping each wheelchair to guard it whereas within the stomach of the airplane. The airline says 390 mobility gadgets had been “fixed or repaired” final 12 months.

“These guests are as valuable as any other guest to us and we want to be an accessible airline and that has been our ambition from the first day. That doesn’t mean we are perfect; no organization is ever perfect,” he stated.

Stephanie Cadieux, Canada’s first Chief Accessibility Officer, says the problems within the airline business are a symptom of a a lot bigger drawback round accessibility.

“There is a lot of work to be done but it is not unique to the airline sector,” Cadieux advised CTV News.

Today Cadieux filed her first ever annual report entitled “Everyone’s Business: Accessibility in Canada.”  In it, Cadieux finds that whereas progress is being made, Canada nonetheless has a protracted method to go if it desires to be barrier free by 2040 – the aim of the federal government’s Accessible Canada Act.

“Accessibility is no longer option. If it’s not accessible it’s not done,” Cadieux advised CTV News. “There is a lot of work to do in all areas of society if we are to remove the barriers so people with disabilities of all types can be included.”

Last 12 months Cadieux’s wheelchair was left behind by Air Canada following a flight to Vancouver. After Cadieux went public, the airline apologized and her wheelchair was returned.

That scenario is one former Paralympian and president of BC Adaptive Snow Sports Sarah Morris-Probert has additionally skilled. She says her wheelchair and athletic tools has been repeatedly broken or left behind on her travels around the globe.

“It is extremely frustrating,” she stated. “On good days it works great, but consistency would be good.”

Last fall, Morris-Probert says she needed to drag herself up the steps to her airplane in Cabo San Lucas after she says workers refused to tug a ramp up the airline’s door.

“Barrier free access through ramps is the easiest way,” she added. “In Cabo there were ramps but they did not deploy them.”

NDP MP Taylor Bachrach highlighted Morris-Probert’s case at committee at present for example of “mistreatment” of passengers with disabilities by WestJet. von Hoensbroech stated on that day airplane congestion pressured the arrival WestJet flight to park on the tarmac as a substitute of at a gate, as regular. He says the Plan B was to hold Morris-Probert up the steps however she refused, citing security considerations.

“I understand this is not a great process,” he advised the committee. “I don’t like that either, but it was the next best option or the last good option we had.”

von Hoensbroech advised the committee that many airports it flies to, together with some in northern Canada, wouldn’t have the mandatory tools to make sure passengers with a incapacity have a clean expertise. He additionally referred to as for worldwide rules to make sure a clean transition for passenger flying internationally the place airways presently have totally different rules referring to accessibility.

Passenger Rights Advocate Gábor Lukács says one factor legislators can do is strengthen the Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations, so compensation is mechanically supplied to passengers whose wheelchair or mobility gadget is broken or left behind.

“The culprit is the perennial problem of inadequate enforcement and inadequate legislation,” he advised the committee.

He additionally says stiffer fines must be added for airways, and that airways must be required to trace and hand over knowledge to the Canadian Transportation Agency about complaints filed by passengers with disabilities.

“It codifies important principles, but was not written with enforcement in mind,” he advised the committee. “It does not stipulate clearly defined, predictable and significant financial consequences for violations nor does it offer automatic compensation for effected passengers.”