DAME TANNI: The recommendations

1. Mandate baseline disability and accessibility awareness training

While training should be proportionate and appropriate to each role, airports and airlines should ensure all personnel receive essential baseline disability and accessibility awareness training. This could be achieved through a requirement for such training to be a condition for obtaining an airport pass and/or included in airport contract terms.

2. Co-develop training materials with people with lived experience

Industry should incorporate input from Disabled people when developing training materials, ensuring they reflect real-world challenges and solutions. The materials could include, for example, videos and testimonials to bring personal perspectives to life and enhance understanding.

3. Increase the availability of skilled trainers

Industry should make efforts to expand and develop the pool of trainers with lived experience. Where appropriate and proportionate, training should be delivered by trainers who combine subject expertise and lived experience across a range of impairments.

4. Improve and standardise training content

Industry should develop a consistent, enhanced training package for all aviation staff, including airline crew, assistance service providers, ground services and security, and at all levels. Content should be proportionate and appropriate to each role.

5. Ensure continuous improvement of training

Industry should ensure regular updates to training content, drawing on both positive and negative incidents, to improve service quality for Disabled passengers. These updates can be made throughout the year, including more agile approaches such as briefings to staff and sharing real-time experiences across industry, ensuring continuous learning and adaptation.

6. Improve access to standardised accessibility information

Airlines and airports should implement the ‘One Click’ standard to enable easy access to key and specific information, to allow customers to make informed decisions. Information should include how to request and book both airport and airline assistance, available in-airport assistance services and where those are located, onboard seating and medical clearance policies, detailed guidance on the carriage of mobility aids, and recognised assistance dogs and conditions of when an accompanying person is required. The standard should also include, roles and responsibilities of the airline, the airport and the passenger.

7. Create airport accessibility guides

Airports should develop comprehensive accessibility guides, detailing available services, accessible facilities, wayfinding options, and how passengers can request support. These guides should ensure that Disabled passengers can navigate the airport and access all necessary facilities, services and assistance.

8. Ensure digital accessibility

Industry should ensure that all digital communications, including websites, mobile apps, and email are fully accessible and user friendly for all passengers. This should be in line with existing guidelines and designed and tested with a pan-impaired range of Disabled users.

9. Enhance access to assistance throughout the airport journey

Airports and assistance service providers should provide passengers with mechanisms to access assistance throughout the airport. Recognising the varying sizes and operations at airports, examples to achieve this could include more staffed help desks, real-time updates via SMS, email, and in-app notifications to keep passengers informed about flight status, gate changes, and assistance options, two-way communication, and alternative methods to contact support staff when required.

10. Ensure clear passenger rights and complaints procedures

Airlines and airports should ensure passengers have access to transparent, clear and accessible information about their rights and how to raise a complaint. This could include the establishment of a voluntary complaint resolution officer, as well as clear escalation routes.

11. Include pan-impairment requirements in airport accessibility reviews

Airports should ensure that accessibility reviews include considerations for diverse impairments including non-visible. These should specifically address the needs of diverse groups, ensuring that all passengers, regardless of their impairment, have access to appropriate facilities, services, and support throughout the airport journey.

12. Develop awareness campaigns to increase confidence to fly

Industry should consider developing targeted awareness campaigns aimed at reducing the stigma and increasing confidence for passengers with non-visible impairments to ask for support. These campaigns should also educate staff and the general public on the challenges faced by passengers with non-visible impairments, encouraging empathy, understanding, and support.

13. Ensure clear communication with passengers about mobility aids

Ground services and assistance service provider staff should ensure clear communication with passengers regarding the handling of their mobility aids. Passengers should be informed of the relevant rules and procedures, asked about the specifics of their mobility aid, and made aware of how it will be handled throughout the journey. Passengers also have a responsibility to provide accurate and up-to-date information.

14. Establish a working group on mobility aid design and handling

The AATFG identified areas in the design and handling of mobility aids that could benefit from ongoing consideration. An industry-led group, with representation from various organisations, including manufacturers, could help sustain progress in this area.

15. Develop improved means of capturing passenger needs

Industry should develop better systems to capture and communicate passenger’s accessibility information, to ensure that specific needs are accurately responded to.

16. Ensure appropriate equipment is used

Airports, assistance service providers and ground services should ensure that equipment and vehicles are used in the provision of appropriate assistance to passengers and handling of personal mobility aids. Equipment must have been specifically designed for these purposes and properly maintained.

17. Develop self-assessment tool

CAA should create maturity matrices for requirements in legislation and guidance in the UK, which industry can use as a self-assessment tool for compliance with CAA accessibility standards.

18. CAA should review and update existing guidance

19. CAA should review and update existing guidance on CAA Airport Performance Framework (CAP1228). 

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