The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) recently fined the air travel giant American Airlines $50 million, citing its numerous violations of laws protecting airline passengers with disabilities.
The penalty follows a four-year-long DOT investigation into the airline, where the agency said it uncovered many cases of unsafe physical assistance that resulted in injuries and undignified treatment of wheelchair users as well as thousands of cases of wheelchairs being damaged or mishandled.
"The era of tolerating poor treatment of airline passengers with disabilities is over," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. "With this penalty, we are setting a new standard of accountability for airlines that violate the civil rights of passengers with disabilities. By setting penalties at levels beyond the mere cost of doing business for airlines, we're aiming to change how the industry behaves and prevent these kinds of abuses from happening in the first place.”
Buttigieg said the fine is the largest ever of its type, with American paying a $25 million fine to the U.S. Treasury Department and the remaining $25 million being invested in airline equipment, such as a wheelchair tagging system, to reduce incidents of wheelchair damage. Additional funds will go toward compensating passengers whose rights the agency said were violated from 2019 to 2023.
American Airlines first came under fire for its mistreatment of disabled passengers back in 2023, when a video on TikTok showed American Airlines baggage handlers sending a wheelchair down a chute.
American Airlines said in a statement that it has already spent $175 million this year on “services, infrastructure, training and new technology” that led to a 20% improvement in its wheelchair- and scooter-handling rating since 2022.
“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,” the airline said in a statement. “American takes all these complaints and claims seriously and works hard to remediate them.”
However, the DOT has said that these problems are not unique to American Airlines and that mishandling and inadequate wheelchair assistance are actively being investigated within other U.S. airlines.
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