The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued American Airlines a landmark $50 million penalty for the airline’s mistreatment of disabled travelers and their mobility aids between 2019 and 2023.
According to the DOT, the airline violated laws protecting travelers with disabilities, at times resulting in damaged wheelchairs, failing to provide wheelchair assistance, undignified treatment of travelers in wheelchairs and unsafe assistance that led to injury.
The penalty of $50 million is 25 times larger than the department’s previous largest penalty for these violations, setting a new precedent and a message that the department will not tolerate more mishandling and mistreatment. Under Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the DOT has made progress on holding the airlines accountable. In 2022, it published the first Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights to inform travelers about their rights.
“The era of tolerating poor treatment of airline passengers with disabilities is over,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “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 a 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.”
The airline is required to pay a $25 million fine to the U.S. Treasury, while $25 million will be credited towards investments in equipment, a systemwide wheelchair tagging system and compensation for affected passengers. If these changes aren’t made, American will be required to pay the additional $25 fine.
The department states that “American had been one of the worst performers among U.S. airlines in terms of both the total number of wheelchairs and scooters mishandling claims and the rate of mishandling claims, and DOT’s investigation revealed a significant number of violations.”
American Airlines issued their own release about the fine, recommitting to improve the experience for travelers with disabilities. In 2023 alone, the airline served 8 million travelers who requested some form of assistance and transported over 146,000 wheelchairs and mobility devices. Of these 8 million, about 1 in every 1,000 reported an issue with the airline.
“This year, American invested over $175 million in service, infrastructure and training to improve the travel experience for customers traveling with wheelchairs or other mobility devices,” said Julie Rath, Senior Vice President of Airport Operations, Reservations, and Service Recovery at American. “Today’s agreement reaffirms American’s commitment to taking care of all of our customers.”
One of these investments was the implementation of an automated tag for mobility devices across its network, which launched in July, providing greater information about the mobility device, travel information and more.
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