Accessibility standards at airports slump, despite regulator claiming they have improved

Accessibility standards at airports across the UK have slumped over the last year – and in comparison with pre-pandemic levels – despite the regulator claiming they have improved.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued an annual report yesterday (Wednesday) that showed that 11 airports were rated “very good” for accessibility, 12 airports were rated “good”, and five airports were rated as “needs improvement”.

It claimed that this showed “standards increasing” as no airports had been given a “poor rating”, while a senior executive said its report showed that “progress is being made” and the headline of the press release stated: “Improvements in airport accessibility continues since pandemic…”

But because of the impact of the pandemic, CAA was unable to produce figures that would allow a direct comparison with last year’s figures.

Last year’s report showed only how every airport had been assessed in each quarter, without offering a rating for the whole year.

And those figures show that, in the last quarter of 2022-23, every one of the airports assessed – apart from London Heathrow – was given a “very good” rating, although passenger numbers were lower than this year.

In this year’s report, only 11 of 28 airports were rated “very good”.

And of those rated in both 2019-20 and 2023-24, eight had a lower rating this year, while just three had a better rating than four years ago.

The report does note that demand for assistance at airports has increased, with 1.69 per cent of passengers now seeking support from staff in airports to help them travel, compared with 0.94 per cent in 2010 and 1.35 per cent in 2019.

This, combined with a post-pandemic increase in passenger numbers, means the number of requests for assistance from passengers departing, arriving, or connecting at a UK airport has risen from 3.68 million passengers in 2022-23 to 4.45 million in 2023-24.

The five airports said to need to improve accessibility were London Gatwick, Bristol, Cardiff Wales, Liverpool and Norwich.

CAA also included results from its 2023 aviation consumer survey, which showed satisfaction with the overall travel experience falling by eight per cent for disabled people between November 2019 and October 2023, with just 74 per cent of disabled passengers now satisfied.

And, the report added, the gap in satisfaction between disabled passengers and non-disabled passengers has increased since 2019 “at every single customer journey touchpoint except passport control and immigration”.

The report was published alongside three “deep dive accessibility assessments”, which were carried out at Heathrow, London Stansted, and London Luton.

Heathrow and Luton had been rated in the main report as “good”, while Stansted was rated “very good”.

But despite those ratings, the deep dive assessments found multiple failures at each airport.

Among the concerns at Heathrow was the failure to provide relief areas for assistance dogs within terminals two and four.

It also found that 15 of the call points that are used by disabled passengers to request assistance were out of order; there were no “out of order” signs on the call points, but there was a notice with a phone number to call the assistance provider.

And when CAA examined a sample of 20 complaints made by disabled passengers, none of those that reached “deadlock” were referred by Heathrow to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, as they should have been.

There were also no low-level counters at Heathrow’s assistance desks.

At Stansted, which was rated “very good”, among the concerns raised by CAA was that the assistance dog relief areas were not signposted, and “multiple” call points did not have seating nearby in case disabled passengers needed to wait for assistance to arrive.

As with Heathrow, deadlocked complaints were not “routinely” referred to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution.

Among the concerns at Luton – which was rated “good” – there was no quiet route for neurodivergent passengers to avoid the busy duty-free area, while CAA could not find information on the airport’s website on how to obtain replacement mobility equipment if a passenger’s has been damaged or lost.

CAA’s failure to call out the industry for its deteriorating performance on accessibility comes less than a fortnight after a Channel 4 documentary exposed the repeated discrimination faced by disabled air passengers.

That documentary, presented by disabled broadcaster Sophie Morgan, investigated the abuse, dehumanising treatment, damaged equipment and even physical harm experienced by wheelchair-users who travel by air.

CAA did not comment on the documentary after it was broadcast.

The concerns over accessibility will come as no surprise to disabled people who have repeatedly reported their own concerns about air travel in recent years, often on social media.

Two years ago, two prominent disabled campaigners were failed by assistance services at Gatwick and Manchester within 24 hours.

In the same month, two British Airways cabin crew who worked on flights in and out of Heathrow described passenger assistance services at the airport as an “absolute shambles”, with waits of up to 90 minutes for disabled passengers who wanted to leave their plane.

The previous month, Gatwick had to apologise to disabled journalist Victoria Brignell after she was left on a plane for more than 90 minutes after it landed.

At the time, CAA refused to comment on those and other failures.

Picture by Heathrow Airport

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