Aviation bill will improve access to air travel but there is far more to do, say campaigning disabled peers

Disabled peers have played a significant role in improving a government bill that should improve the experiences of disabled air passengers, but they have promised to keep pressuring the government to make further vital changes.

The civil aviation (consumer protection and regulatory reform) bill ended its passage through the Lords this week, and will now be debated by MPs when they return from their summer break.

Large parts of the bill’s passage through the Lords have been taken up by peers attempting to improve measures on accessibility and address the way disabled people are treated by airports and airlines.

The government responded by making a string of amendments to the bill.

One amendment orders the transport secretary to begin a consultation within 12 months of the bill becoming law, on a range of accessibility issues.

Issues covered in the consultation will include compensation for breaches of assistance duties, protection for passengers with allergies, and complaints handling.

One key amendment to the bill will remove the cap on compensation for mobility aids and wheelchairs that are damaged or lost on domestic UK flights.

The bill’s first clause gives the transport secretary the right to issue new regulations on the rights of passengers – including disabled passengers – and the duties of air transport service-providers, and to amend existing passenger rights regulations.

Another government amendment to the bill says that, when making these regulations, the transport secretary will need to have “due regard to the desirability of strengthening the rights of persons who purchase or use air transport services”, including disabled passengers, and to keeping to a set of principles around air travel for disabled people.

These principles include that disabled people should be “treated with dignity”, that their access to services should be “equal or comparable” to non-disabled passengers, that assistance “should meet their needs”, and that “independent journeys” by disabled passengers “should be facilitated wherever possible”.

The bill will also introduce direct enforcement of consumer protection legislation by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, which should allow earlier and more effective intervention when airlines or airports breach consumer law, including on accessibility.

Lord Hendy, a transport minister, said last week that the government would also use its influence internationally to “advocate for higher standards of accessibility worldwide”.

He said that changes relating to disabled passengers had strengthened the bill during its passage through the Lords.

He praised the disabled peers Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson (crossbench), Lord [Chris] Holmes and Lord Blencathra (both Conservatives), and Baroness [Sal] Brinton (Liberal Democrat), and the Labour peer Baroness [Alicia] Kennedy, for their work improving the accessibility aspects of the bill.

Baroness Grey-Thompson, who chaired a government “task and finish group” that was set up by the Labour government in 2024 to find ways to improve aviation accessibility, said this week that the bill – when it becomes law – will help some disabled passengers.

But she said that once it becomes law there will need to be continuing pressure on the government, industry and internationally to make further crucial improvements.

She told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that assistance for disabled passengers needed to be “far more tailored to what people need”.

She said that many of the changes that will make most difference are governed by international law, and so will need international co-operation.

She said: “What the UK does have control of is bringing that equipment to the door of the aircraft and the training that staff go through.

“The government have committed to raising at international meetings the need to make it far easier and reliable for disabled people to travel and to push for reform.”

Baroness Brinton told DNS: “There’s a great deal that needs to happen now but I certainly believe that the service to disabled and PRM [passengers with restricted mobility] passengers should improve and airlines/airport companies will be held accountable in the future.

“I will not be alone in watching for this.”

Last week, Baroness Grey-Thompson told fellow peers that some of the key changes that were needed relied on international co-operation.

She said: “Some of the things that we really need – appropriate compensation if mobility equipment is destroyed or goes missing or is not tied down in planes – relies on international jurisdictions.

“I ask the minister to keep that level of pressure up. We could do better – throughout the whole world, actually – in how disabled people are treated.

“Complaints should not be so complicated, and it should not take so long or be so difficult to get compensation or to get equipment repaired.”

She added: “The voice of disabled people is important, and we should be learning from the best, so I will be watching the consultation closely.

“The industry can and should do better.”

Baroness Kennedy said: “The reality is that services for, and the treatment of, disabled people in the aviation industry are woefully inadequate – and they do not have to be.

“We know the issues and we know what needs to change. We now need to find the legislative framework to deliver that change.”

Lord Blencathra told fellow peers last week that he had been left waiting to be disembarked from a plane for more than an hour at Heathrow on 24 June.

He said he was “not calling for some massive, gold-plated regulatory regime that will bring up costs; I am calling for some of the current law to be enforced and for improvements to be made”.

Lord Holmes said it “often feels like disabled people are being treated like cargo, to be just moved in whatever fashion is determined from one place to another, or, indeed… to not be moved, missing the flight or being left on the flight long after it has landed and all the passengers have left the plane”.

He called for the government to lead an “international dialogue” to “bring other like-minded nations around that table to move things forward”.

He said: “This has gone on too long and it is unacceptable that, just at the point you step airside, all your rights fly away.”

Picture: (From left to right) Lord Holmes, Baroness Grey-Thompson and Baroness Brinton