All Wheels Up (AWU), the non -profit organisation funding research and development for a wheelchair spot on commercial aircraft, is celebrating the U.S. House of Representatives’ approval of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. The bill grants funding for the FAA to continue its role and responsibilities for five more years, and also includes several accessibility measures that will benefit wheelchair users.
AWU says that these accessibility measures will further its vision of establishing a ‘wheelchair spot’ on commercial airplanes, and their inclusion in the bill are in part due to AWU’s continued advocacy and work with members of Congress, staff, the Department of Transportation, and other stakeholders.
The bill includes several elements that will directly affect wheelchair users and those with disabilities.
- Expansion of the Advanced Materials Center of Excellence. This subsection of the bill expands the Center’s responsibilities to conduct “research and development into aircraft structure crash worthiness and passenger safety, as well as address safe and accessible air travel of individuals with a disability, including materials required to facilitate safe wheelchair restraint systems on commercial aircraft”.
- A ‘roadmap’ on the feasibility of in-cabin wheelchair restraint systems and a study on economic and financial feasibility of wheelchair spots on airplanes. The Secretary of Transportation is mandated to produce a ‘strategic roadmap’ within exactly one year, to show how a wheelchair restraint system could be safely employed in a commercial airplane cabin.
If implementation of a wheelchair restraint system is deemed viable, the Secretary of Transportation is required to oversee a study on the economic and financial feasibility of air carriers to implement wheelchair spots on airplanes. The study would consider cost, demand, operations, and other implementation factors.
- Training standards for airline personnel and contractors who assist wheelchair users. The federal government will now mandate that any airline employee or contractor operating in the United States who assists wheelchair users must complete relevant training.
While the specifics of the training are yet to be determined, the training will need to instruct employees on wheelchair and seat transfers and “how to take instruction from the passenger,” according to the bill.
“This FAA Reauthorization is a win for wheelchair users and addresses multiple areas of air travel that need improvement,” said Michele Erwin, president and founder of All Wheels Up. “We are celebrating this bipartisan bill while steadfastly continuing to build a future where wheelchair users such as my colleagues, friends, and son can fly while seated in their own wheelchairs.”
Find out more from Michele Erwin in the March issue of Aircraft Interiors International.
Several components of this bill which were specifically written for wheelchair users were initiatives proposed by AWU.
“Many of these reforms build upon the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, which All Wheels Up also helped shape,” noted Alan Chaulet, vice president of All Wheels Up. “This wave of progress is thanks to years of collaboration and hard work with a variety of people who share our view that commercial air travel needs to change.”
All Wheels Up has long urged that airport and airline personnel should be specifically instructed on how to facilitate wheelchair users transferring from a custom seat to an aisle chair and then to their designated cabin seat. AWU says that training also needs to include listening to the needs and concerns of passengers who know their abilities, disability, and what is safest for them during travel.
“When travelling by air, passengers who use wheelchairs assume personal risks above that of the average flyer due largely to the need to physically transfer,” said Steve Cullen, board chair of All Wheels Up. “To protect passengers’ personal health, safety and dignity, airport and airline personnel who assist wheelchair users need to be trained on standards of care and best practices, which includes listening to the passenger with a disability on what works for their wellbeing.”
“While the bill was being drafted in 2023, we were advocating for training designed and taught by occupational therapists, professionals who are well-versed in transfers, designing safe activity, and working with people with disabilities,” added Dr Alexandra Bruce, occupational therapist and board member. “We think the approach to training should be no different than teaching CPR, which is standardised and universally understood.”
In conjunction with organisations and academic institutions such as the National Institute for Aviation Research, All Wheels Up has organised, funded, and helped conduct multiple studies to test if the wheelchairs currently on the market could withstand the horizontal and vertical forces of an emergency landing, exactly how force is distributed with the added weight and configuration of a wheelchair aboard a cabin, and whether the wheelchair restraint systems currently available could hold a wheelchair in place just as securely as the aircraft seats attached to the seat rails on the cabin floor.
You can see a video explanation of an All Wheels Up solution HERE and HERE.
Erwin explained: “We know the FAA will need to conduct its own independent safety tests to replicate the testing that we have done, but our research was scientifically designed by experts and engineers, conducted at an FAA-approved facility, and shows that safely securing even heavy electric wheelchairs to the cabin floor is safe, feasible, and fairly straightforward. Including research in this reauthorisation bill will help enable the government to prove these results for themselves and give them the results needed to act.”
Momentum is increasing for All Wheels Up and those advocating for more accessible travel. “We are especially very grateful for the support of passionate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, like Senators Duckworth and Moran, and their dedicated staff,” added Erwin.
