Airlines permitted to ban the disabled if the plane is not properly equipped
by Evgeniya Chaykovskaya at 14/11/2012
The Moscow News
T
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Supreme Court on Wednesday confirmed airlines’ right to ban
disabled passengers service if the plane is not equipped and the
passenger does not warn them, RIA Novosti reported.
The claim was made by consumer rights group “Public Control in Action” after a group of wheelchair-bound Russians were stopped from boarding a plane to Berlin on their way to a forum in Dusseldorf, Germany, to discuss disability related issues.
Judge Nikolai Romanenkov did not demand airlines to find space for people in wheelchairs and passengers on stretchers if they have no means ready to provide it.
It is discrimination - lawyer
Consumer group lawyer Dmitry Lesniak noted that this point has been discriminatory for the disabled patients for five years, and does not comply with the current law. He said it will allow airlines to discriminate.
He noted that both international and Russian law pointed out that everyone has the right to services, whether they have special needs or not.
He said planes could be equipped with special seats, or, alternatively, not equipped with special seats and thus services will not be provided to the disabled, citing the lack of equipment.
He noted that airlines must not have the right to refuse to provide service.
“Any citizen, or even not a citizen, can find themselves in a wheelchair or on a stretcher,” his colleague Alexei Davydkin said, adding that in this way the airlines were denying people their constitutional right to free movement.
The organization thinks that if the airlines have no right to refuse, they will be forced to equip their planes or renew them, present an alternative or pay compensation.
Transport ministry says it is an issue of security
A ministry spokesman Dmitry Konovalov reminded the court of the norm that an airline can refuse service to a passenger whose health condition demands specific conditions, threatens the life of said passenger or others.
“If this norm is removed, then transportation of said passengers will not be regulated, and other passengers will have to be transported too. Thus, there may be a need to cut down the number of ordinary seats while catering for the disabled in planes that are not fit for it,” he said.
His colleague Svetlana Tonkikh added that the claimants have not presented cases from court practices that show that rights of disabled have been violated at least once.
Duma wants to force airlines to equip planes
The State Duma is already discussing a bill that would force airlines to equip their planes to cater to disabled passengers, but it reserves the right for airlines to deny service if they are not informed in advance about the disabled passenger.
The Justice Ministry representative, however, supported the claimants.
Prosecutor Larisa Masalova said the law already stated that the only way the airline can refuse a passenger is if they have no means to transport them. She added that the right to refuse to transport a patient on a stretcher is first and foremost a way to ensure the safety of other passengers.
Both sides will be able to appeal.
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