The Biden administration is slapping American Airlines with a record-setting punishment, criticizing the carrier’s treatment of passengers who use wheelchairs for mobility devices — and their essential equipment.
The U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday announced a $50 million penalty against American.
As part of an agreement, the Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier will have to pay a $25 million fine to the federal government. It will also be required to invest an additional $25 million in improving the passenger experience for travelers with disabilities, from its interactions to infrastructure that helps employees handle mobility devices.
The DOT-imposed penalties come after the department revealed it uncovered “numerous serious violations” of passenger rights laws between 2019 and 2023.
During that time, the DOT said that American mishandled thousands of wheelchairs and repeatedly failed to offer prompt wheelchair assistance. Investigators also found a litany of unsafe or undignified treatment of disabled passengers that, in some cases, led to injuries.
“The bottom line is that the era of tolerating the poor treatment of wheelchair users on airplanes is over. Breaking a passenger’s wheelchair or treating them in an undignified or unsafe manner is not just wrong, it is illegal, and that’s why we’re taking historic action here,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on a call with reporters.
In a statement to TPG Wednesday, American said it “has a longstanding commitment to serving passengers with disabilities.” The carrier fielded more than 8 million requests for wheelchair assistance in 2023, the airline added, with just 0.1% of those cases resulting in a complaint.
Other airlines under investigation, too
In announcing the steep penalties against American, the DOT acknowledged the carrier is not alone.
The DOT Office of Aviation Consumer Protection has multiple active investigations into other U.S. carriers.
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“While American Airlines appeared to be one of the worst offenders, the problems we have uncovered in our investigation are not confined to one airline,” Buttigieg said.
However, DOT officials said that American, between 2019 and 2023, ranked near the top of several key complaint categories, from lack of prompt wheelchair assistance to mishandled mobility devices.
The DOT specifically pointed to a series of complaints filed against American by the nonprofit Paralyzed Veterans of America, a longtime advocate for disabled passengers in commercial air travel.
The department specifically referenced, as evidence, a high-profile 2023 social media post that appeared to show a wheelchair careening down a luggage ramp before toppling violently onto the ground in Miami — a case Buttigieg, at the time, described as “totally unacceptable” on the social platform X.
According to Bureau of Transportation Statistics data, airlines mishandled more than 1,000 wheelchairs, scooters and mobility devices in August alone — the last month for which the agency has data.
In 2023, carriers mishandled around 1.38% of mobility devices, down slightly from 1.41% in 2022, according to BTS data.
Passengers whose mobility devices are damaged often face significant inconvenience and, at times, unsafe conditions while waiting for a repair or replacement wheelchair — with many of those devices highly customized to meet their individual needs.
Meant to be a deterrent
The DOT’s steep penalty against American is 25 times larger than any historically comparable fine, Buttigieg said — one that’s meant to “change airlines’ behavior.”
But it’s also just the latest case of the Biden administration taking a heavy-handed approach to regulating airlines in the name of consumer protections.
In 2022, the DOT explicitly spelled out decades-old protections afforded to disabled passengers in an Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights.
Earlier this year, the department proposed a new rule that would tighten requirements for how airlines accommodate passengers and handle mobility devices, calling for sharp penalties for carriers that mishandle wheelchairs — along with imposing more stringent employee training.
The Biden administration also finalized a rule last year that requires carriers to soon begin installing accessible lavatories on newly delivered single-aisle jets starting in the 2030s; the Air Carrier Access Act, signed by former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, already requires larger lavatories on wide-body jets.
American responds
As part of this latest action, American will be required to invest $25 million into acquiring equipment meant to reduce wheelchair damage at dozens of airports nationwide. This is in addition to issuing compensation to passengers affected by alleged violations between 2019 and 2023.
For its part, the carrier tells TPG that it has already invested more than $175 million this year on services, infrastructure, training and new technology at its airports — including new wheelchair movers and chair lifts at 20-plus airports. Several more airports, American said, should get upgraded equipment by the end of this year.
“Despite these improvements, there are instances where the service the airline provides is disrupted, untimely, or results in harm to the passenger or their equipment. American takes all these complaints and claims seriously, and it works hard to remediate them,” the carrier said in a statement Wednesday.
The U.S. Travel Association also weighed in on Wednesday’s announcement, noting American’s “commitment and care” for customers with disabilities “is clearly evident in the progress and investments it has made,” a spokesperson said in a statement to TPG.
Accounting for a wider range of key performance metrics, American Airlines ranked fourth among U.S. carriers in TPG’s 2024 Best U.S. Airlines Report.
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