Unfriendly Skies

...Why do they even have seats in these rows...

...When the process was wrapping up in early November, says Capozzi, "We really thought we were going to make it...

...Senator Dole's staff made several attempts to bring the group back together, but neither side would give...

...The Air Transport Association always cites safety as the factor dictating how and when and whether passengers with disabilities will be served...

...Capozzi was shocked by much of what he saw...

...So, ironically, all the work of the disabled community to eradicate discrimination now threatens to institutionalize, to regularize, the sorts of practices they were fighting to abolish...

...Louis to meet her flight and take her home...

...You can have someone who's all snockered in an exit row, and they're not going to be able to function in an emergency," he says...

...The group saw the exemption of airlines from Section 504 as ludicrous nitpicking...

...only small air shuttles that were getting direct operational funds from the Government were covered...

...The legislation, called the Air Carriers Access Act, passed unanimously, with the support of the Air Transport Association (a trade association composed of many major airlines) and the Department of Transportation (DOT...

...It's an incestuous relationship...

...The flight crew "All the work of the disabled to eradicate discrimination now threatens to regularize the sorts of practices they were fighting to abolish.' didn't even look at me," she says, but decided that she could not fly unless someone who could walk accompanied her...

...Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Michael Ervin is a free-lance writer in Chicago...

...The regulatory negotiations began in June 1987...

...But Benson says that's just a convenient excuse...

...But someone in TWA apparently wants its people to be sensitive to the needs of the disabled...

...No matter what happens, the battle will probably drag on for years...

...The Tallaricos sued TWA for the way the airline treated them...

...When Gashel refused to move, the flight was canceled, the passengers were transferred to another flight, and Gashel was removed by police and charged with trespassing...

...You will sit in the back of the bus if we say so.'" In fact, Benson has encountered the exact opposite of Gashel's problem: A pilot once insisted that he sit in the exit row, and told him the FAA required it...

...She says these lobbies are more powerful in that arena and can also minimize the bad publicity...

...Capozzi worries that such a meager penalty encourages airlines to take their chances on discrimination as usual...

...The b.s...

...If you'd gotten different racial groups together with the white restaurant owners and started negotiating how many restaurants would be open to blacks, and if someone said 25 per cent, there would be a walkout...

...The Association also chastises DOT for issuing rules that "advance the misconception" that access to airlines is a civil right: "There is no civil right to fly free from reasonable restrictions based on concern for public safety...

...Senator Robert Dole—himself a disabled veteran—helped fashion legislation to amend the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 to make it clear that commercial airlines may not discriminate...

...The representatives of the disabled took a recess and returned to announce they were walking out...

...Besides, there is no way a person making reservations can know whether other disabled people will be on the same flight...

...You never know what's going to happen next...

...So in June 1988, DOT released a notice of proposed rule-making outlining its idea of a successful balance between civil rights and safety...

...After all these years we had something we could hang our hat on...

...It was a silly distinction, and that's why we moved so quickly on Congress...

...is endless," he says, "not only in quantitative terms but in its variations...

...People with disabilities demand self-determination...

...His chair has been damaged by airlines several times, once to the tune of more than $1,000...

...The DOT's Ashby says he feels frustrated because the situation is more snarled than ever: "The positions of both sides have hardened a great deal...

...If they were to take effect, arbitrary discrimination would be written into law...

...None of these regulations was agreed upon before the representatives of the disabled community quit attending...

...Their pilots, their technical people go to work for them as contractors...

...And people who have been trying to change the situation faced by disabled travelers finally have the law on their side but still face the stone walls of bureaucracy every which way they turn...

...The proposed rules say, for example, that airlines may not require the first quadriplegic on a flight to be accompanied by an attendant, but it may require attendants for all others on the same flight...

...The Association's position on attendants for wheelchair users is typical of its stance on all major issues...

...It added a clause that reads: "Within 120 days of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Transportation shall promulgate regulations to ensure nondiscriminatory treatment of qualified handicapped individuals consistent with safe carriage of all passengers on air carriers...

...It wasn't so much the issue we walked out on," Capozzi explains...

...We were substantially closer to an agreement than we are today...

...Someone there, in turn, called the Tallaricos...

...But Steve Benson, president of the Illinois chapter of the National Federation of the Blind, says the issue is important enough to be a deal breaker...

...He ended up saying she didn't belong in public with normal people...

...They support laws creating such protection, but then eviscerate them in the "reg-neg" stage...

...It says the airlines don't discriminate against people with disabilities...

...I was sitting there, and I was thinking this is like 1964 and the Civil Rights Act has just been signed...

...You can't do that to me.' He said, 'I can and I will if it means the safety of the aircraft.'" He decided to leave it up to the flight crew, which said she couldn't go, and the plane took off without her...

...I didn't think it would be a piece of cake," Capozzi says, "but I didn't think we'd have as big a problem with the airlines or the Government...

...Molly Tallarico escorted Polly back to Houston after Thanksgiving...

...An advocate who spends much time on Capitol Hill says she sees an emerging strategy among business lobbies that oppose expanded protection for the disabled...

...Maybe the ground crew and flight crew who mistreated Polly just happened to sleep through the screening of a training film all employees are supposed to see...

...DOT representative Bob] Ashby got up and said this was an issue they were taking away from the committee...

...A jury granted them more than $90,000 in damages, but on appeal a judge reduced the award to about $2,000...

...DOT then issued proposed regulations for comment that horrified people in the disabled community...

...But the minute you took off, you weren't covered...

...Another proposed rule would require a person with a wheelchair using batteries to give the airline forty-eight hours' notice...

...The Air Transport Association is just as upset as the disabled over the proposed regulations—but its members see them as far too liberal...

...Airlines that refuse to carry wet-cell batteries cite the Hazardous Materials Act, which forbids the transport of corrosives...

...of 1973 prohibits discrimination against disabled people by recipients of Federal funds...

...But wheelchair batteries can be an exception if a few simple steps are taken that are neither expensive nor time-consuming...

...If a traveler is denied boarding because the airline crew wrongfully interprets the regulations, the maximum penalty is a $550 fine...

...The Association's reply says there is no need for any regulations other than those issued ten years ago by the Civil Aeronautics Board, with a few minor adjustments...

...The Paralyzed Veterans had followed the rules, played the Washington game, and, more than a decade into the process, matters were in many ways worse...

...Louis arranged with Trans World Airlines for her thirteen-year-old daughter Polly to fly home for the Thanksgiving holidays from her school in Houston...

...It's called They See My Chrome, But They Don't See Me...

...What happens then...

...A dissent written by Justice Thurgood Marshall suggested the eventual remedy...

...If the new regulations had been in place, TWA's arbitrary refusal to let Polly on the plane might well have been within the rules...

...By this time, Polly's father was already at the airport in St...

...The airline industry has a lot closer relationship with DOT [than with Congress...

...In 1978, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) issued the regulations for airlines and airports...

...by the time he arrived, Polly and the driver had been waiting thirteen hours...

...Horror stories like those told here are at best only "anecdotal accounts" and don't show a pattern of discrimination...

...Ashby says the proposed rules are DOT's best attempt to balance "legitimate competing interests...

...But the Federal Aviation Administration tried to hold a hard line on exit-row seating, insisting that complete jurisdiction over the issue be left in its hands...

...Gashel agrees, but for other reasons...

...Why do they serve alcohol at all...

...So if they're so worried about safety, why do they allow alcohol to be served to people in exit rows...

...Linda Davison, who works for Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan, uses an electric wheelchair and travels on planes often enough to know how to make her needs abundantly clear when making reservations...

...The large commercial airlines, which carry 90 per cent of all air passengers, were free to discriminate, to pick and choose from moment to moment which people with disabilities they would serve and under what conditions...

...And when the Air Carriers Access Act passed in October 1986, says Capozzi, "It was a big moment...

...Since airplanes are so inaccessible, almost anyone in a wheelchair falls into this category...

...Since a new, standard electric wheelchair costs $5,000 to $6,000, damages in excess of $2,500 are not at all inconceivable...

...He flew to Houston to get her...

...If I were in an industry where I dealt with agencies all the time, I might rather take my chances with my friends than with people I didn't know...

...The airline industry has a wait-and-see attitude, but the Paralyzed Veterans of America stands ready to keep challenging unacceptable regulations in court and Congress...

...He has been told he cannot fly without another adult to accompany him...

...If we would have accepted that, we would have been in a much weaker position...

...The Paralyzed Veterans of America-chartered by Congress to defend the interests of its 14,000 members and all people with disabilities—found this intolerable...

...They had $5 between them and had been eating cookies and ice cream...

...The airlines demand absolute discretion...

...Polly has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair...

...I don't think we ever should have done it," he says...

...Griffin once completed a flight only to learn that someone in the city of his departure had confiscated the batteries from his electric wheelchair, rendering it useless...

...The final decision will be made in the next few months by Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner...

...Frequent fliers know that spontaneity is essential...

...Finally I said, 'Please don't tell me you're not going to take me...

...It's a power struggle...

...These are examples of the degradation inflicted on the disabled that prompted the Paralyzed Veterans of America to act in the first place...

...Jim Gashel, director of governmental affairs for the National Federation of the Blind, has been arrested twice for refusing to move from a seat in the exit aisle...

...He never spoke to Polly, and he called the supervisor, who never emerged from her office in the basement...

...But this rule will leave it up to airline personnel to determine the competence of people they've never met before...

...Ashby said the FAA would issue separate regulations...

...When they arrived, a member of the ground crew asked her if she was the mother of the girl who caused all that trouble, she recalls...

...As Molly Tallarico says, "How could we not, not just for Polly, but for anyone who is disabled...

...But the adventure was only beginning...

...In fact, we were going through section by section...

...Many quadriplegics need no assistance from anyone, so there is no need to force them to buy an extra ticket...

...Eric Griffin, director of Independence Associates, a center for independent living in Brockton, Massachusetts, has seen it all and had it all happen to him...

...They were all surprises," says Capozzi...

...Airlines simply could not function without Federally financed airports and Federally employed air-traffic controllers...

...Nobody likes to be showed up by blind people...

...In his view, equating that sort of inconvenience to a civil-rights violation makes a mockery of the access law...

...I cleared it through our travel agency," says her mother, "and it was cleared through TWA medical and everything...

...It interpreted "recipient" very narrowly...

...The family is appealing that reduction...

...It makes sense," says Capozzi...

...The proposed rules also set the airlines' maximum liability for damage to equipment, including wheelchairs, at $2,500...

...No one who uses a wheelchair will find this story shocking—or even surprising...

...The Airline Transport Association's comments say the negotiation process was probably "doomed to failure before it started...

...It happens all the time...

...It strongly rejects the notion that disabled individuals should be able to decide for themselves their competence to fly alone, and says, "Air carrier personnel are the only persons qualified to make such judgments...

...If they back down on this they might have to back down on other things...

...To carry out this mandate, Federal agencies disbursing funds are charged with making the regulations governing the recipients...

...The process called for disability-rights activists to hammer out specifics with representatives of the airline industry and the Government...

...The forty-eight-hour-notice requirement would also apply to anyone in need of special assistance...

...We're being told, 'Sit down, shut up, and like it...

...It was the fact that we couldn't predict what they might pull off the table next...

...The fine is the same maximum recoverable by someone denied boarding because of overbooking or other routine reasons...

...She also knows that people needing assistance are usually boarded before other passengers...

...The Paralyzed Veterans sued, won at the lower-court level, and kept winning until the case got to the Supreme Court, which ruled in the CAB's favor in 1986...

...The idea of a reg-neg process is not a good idea in a civil-rights negotiation," Gashel adds...

...Last year in Chicago, a pilot mistakenly told Gashel there is a Federal Aviation Administration regulation barring blind people from sitting in exit aisles because they would be a hindrance in an emergency...

...We thought it was bad faith...

...That baffled and angered her, since she lives independently every day...

...But five months into the process of regulation negotiation—known to participants as "reg neg"—the representatives of the disabled walked out because they thought DOT had changed the rules in the middle of the game...

...The logic totally escaped David Capozzi, advocacy director for the veterans' group: "What the Court was saying was: So long as you were on the ground, sitting on Federally sponsored and built runways, you were covered...

...But when Polly got to the ticket counter, "the gentleman arbitrarily decided she couldn't fly," her mother says...

...He asked me all kinds of questions about if I could walk and how I would go to the bathroom," says Davison...

...Some progress was made in the thirty to fifty meetings held during the next five months...

...They also know from experiences like Polly Tal-larico's that notifying a travel agent or ticket agent ahead of time doesn't mean that word trickles down to the flight crew...

...The family had hired a driver to take Polly to the airport, and he helped her get in touch with her school...

...And he has been told he cannot fly unless he signs a waiver releasing the airline from any responsibility for damaging his chair...

...And then we got to the exit-row section...

...The CAB's hair-splitting diluted Section 504 beyond recognition...

...That's why she found it curious on a recent Continental flight that everyone else was boarding while a ground-crew member detained her as he scanned his computer and made phone calls...

...There is no empirical evidence," he says, "to show that blind people are a hazard in exit aisles...