WestJet chief executive Alexis von Hoensbroech has apologized for incidents where the airline failed to accommodate people living with disabilities, and says the airline is “committed to doing better.”
“To our guests who didn’t have a good travel experience with us, we are sincerely sorry,” von Hoensbroech said during a House of Commons transport committee hearing on accessible transportation late last week.
More than 99.9% of the carrier’s 260,000-plus customers who required support last year –roughly 700 each day, the vast majority of whom used mobility aids – had a good experience, he said. But he added, “Every case that goes wrong is one too many.”
The appearance followed a committee hearing last week that saw lawmakers take Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau to task over “shocking” failures around accessibility.
Rousseau acknowledged mistakes and pointed to an expedited accessibility scheme announced in November along with new measures to improve the travel experience for hundreds of thousands of passengers living with a disability.
Multiple incidents have surfaced at Canadian airlines over the past year.
Von Hoensbroech highlighted steps WestJet is taking to boost accessibility. These include a process to confirm to customers that mobility aids were loaded into the cargo hold and procedures to properly store those devices on board across its whole network. Both measures are set for rollout “very soon,” he said, on top of plans for clearer communication about what flights cannot accommodate mobility aids beyond a certain size.
Advocates insist tougher rules and enforcement are needed to reduce accessibility barriers.
“As a blind passenger, I dread entering Canadian airspace, because I never know how good or bad will be my treatment,” David Lepofsky, a lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, said in a news release.
“Month after month, the media has reported on inexcusable and recurring incidents where an airline loses or destroys a passenger’s wheelchair, leaves a passenger with disabilities to crawl off an airplane, or strands a passenger with disabilities for hours in a Canadian airport without needed assistance.”
Air passenger rights advocates says current regulations codify important principles, but that enforcement is lax and financial consequences for breaches are not spelled out.
Penalties against large airlines over disabilities violations occasionally top $100,000 and last week the Canadian Transportation Agency penalized one carrier $11,000 after it failed to quickly provide a suitable replacement for a passenger’s mobility aid that had been lost on arrival in Italy.
WestJet received and investigated about 200 complaints related to accessibility last year, some involving damage to mobility aids – “quite small numbers relative to the very large amount of passengers with (disabilities) that we carry,” said Todd Peterson, the airline’s head of regulatory affairs.
Von Hoensbroech took pains to stress the complex, integrated nature of air travel. “If someone books a WestJet ticket but it is operated on an Air France flight – and Air France doesn’t have this type of rule – then this creates confusion,” he said, arguing that rules must be consistent between jurisdictions.
He also cited the high-profile incident of former Paralympian Sarah Morris-Probert, who hauled herself up WestJet aircraft stairs rather than being able to board using her wheelchair.
The WestJet CEO said airport congestion in Los Cabos, Mexico, meant that the plane was forced to park on the tarmac rather than at the gate, leaving stairs as the only way to board given the airport provided no ramps. Crew members had offered to carry Morris-Probert into the aircraft in her wheelchair, but the ex-Paralympian considered that option dangerous, von Hoensbroech said.
“There’s an approved process on how to do it,” he said, but called her experience “humiliating” nonetheless. “I don’t like that either, but it was the next best option.”