Frontier CEO Barry Biffle has identified a new problem facing his discount airline: Too many passengers using accessibility services are losing valuable time and money.
“There is massive, rampant abuse of intelligence agencies,” he said at a luncheon on Thursday in New York. CNBC reports this.. “There are people using wheelchairs who don’t need them at all.”
Biffle said that before one Frontier flight, he saw 20 passengers board the plane in a wheelchair and only three get off using the same accessibility service. Each use of a wheelchair costs the airline between $30 and $35, and Biffle argues that criminals are using this service to disrupt those who really need it.
“Everyone should have the right to do so, but if you park in a handicap space, your car will be towed and you will be fined,” he said. told CNBC. “The abuse of these services should be subject to the same penalties.”
Passengers using a wheelchair during travel were protected Air Carrier Access Act 1986, which requires the provision of wheelchairs to aircraft passengers with disabilities. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced the proposed rule in February. expand these rightsproviding additional training for those who assist disabled passengers and cracking down on airlines that damage wheelchairs in transit.
In a statement for LuckA Frontier spokesman said passengers who abuse the wheelchair system do so to “get ahead of security lines and gain priority boarding on flights” and called for a “wheelchair check-in or screening system” as well as laws to combat with this problem, and penalties for those who abuse the accessibility option.
Frontier has struggled with COVID-impacted travel over the past three years, with share prices falling 70% to about $5.70 since the company went public in early 2021. While the end of the pandemic was supposed to be a boon for the travel industry, airlines like Frontier were budget-conscious I can’t cash out as required due to operational limitations. Frontier in particular has struggled with shortage of air traffic controllers.
In 2022, Frontier pulled out of the race against JetBlue to buy Spirit Airlines. blocked by the judges and ultimately abandoned antitrust concerns. On May 17, the airline announced that it would offer new tariff packages and waive some cancellation fees after the Department of Transport issued a ruling calling on airlines to be more transparent about “junk fees.”
Airline accessibility issues
Biffle’s comments about the misuse of wheelchair services are similar to comments made by London Heathrow Airport boss John Holland-Kaye in July 2022, when he said TikTok “travelers” were advising passengers to use wheelchairs for fast passage, preventing disabled passengers from getting access before the boarding gate.
“Please don’t do this, we need to protect the service for the people who need it most,” then-CEO Holland-Kaye told the London publication. BBK.
The travel chaos caused by Brexit and staff shortages have also exacerbated delays for wheelchair passengers at Heathrow.
But the airline industry hasn’t always had the best track record of serving customers with disabilities. Corey Lee, travel blogger and wheelchair user, told CBS MoneyWatch that flying as a disabled person is a part of travel that he “[dreads] the best of everything.” His $40,000 electric wheelchair breaks down about half the time he travels by plane.
“I’ve had so many terrible experiences on planes and airports when I’ve been transferred out of a wheelchair,” he said.
Others have had similar experiences. In June 2022, wheelchair user Victoria Brignell was reportedly stuck on a plane for more than an hour and a half after it landed because staff at London Gatwick Airport did not come to help her out. After Brignell was seated, she said she saw passengers at the gate still waiting to board, having been delayed by her own difficulties disembarking. It was an example of a lack of infrastructure to help people with accessibility needs, she said. said Business Insider.
“If you improve services for people with disabilities, you improve services for everyone,” she said. “And you can see it here by the fact that the next flight is delayed by an hour and a half.”