What was supposed to be a commuter flight to San Diego quickly turned into an embarrassing experience for Theresa Purcell that propelled her to the front lines of a crusade against an airline.
Purcell — a rapper who has a neurological disorder named Charcot-Marie-Tooth’s disease that keeps her in a wheelchair — said agents told her that they couldn’t set up a ramp shortly before the plane’s departure. With no assistance from airplane staff, she crawled her way onto the plane and into her seat shortly after.
Outraged, Purcell has filed suit against American Airlines, saying that she has never had trouble receiving accommodations on her flight. She also claims that American Airlines didn’t compensate her for her troubles, even with the release of an official apology. While the lawsuit seeks a $2.5 million settlement, Purcell’s attorney expressed plans to pursue between $6 million and $8 million if it goes to trial.
“I [said] I can’t walk up on the stairs, and then she was like, so how you going get on the plane then? And I was like, oh wow,” Purcell told ABC News affiliate KHON-TV. “I crawled up onto the steps. I crawled into the plane. There was no other way for me to get on the plane so I crawled up to the plane. I was humiliated. It was embarrassing to have 50-something people watch you crawl into a plane.”
In a letter to Purcell, American Airlines acknowledged that it violated the U.S. Department of Transportation’s CFR 14 Part 382, a law also known as the Air Carrier Access Act that obligates airline companies to provide the necessary assistance for wheelchair users to allow them to enter planes safely. Tools outlined in these guidelines include mechanical lifts and ramps. Research has shown that such rules work, reducing the number of Americans burdened by public transportation accommodations on their commute by nearly 50 percent within 15 years.
These special travel arrangements count among the regulations that derived from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a civil rights law enacted in the early 1990s. Today, the ADA protects more than 56 million people living with a disability — nearly one-fifth of the American population — about half of whom have received a “severe” designation. In 2008, the scope of disabilities under the legislation broadened to include loss of vision, speech impediments, developmental and mental disorders, immobility, and debilitating health issues.
Even with these advances, people with disabilities can still face hardships during air travel. First, booking flights and securing seating well in advance of one’s flight becomes a hassle. One Australian study found wheelchair-bound passengers also face safety hazards on planes and find difficulty using the restroom during travel, often forcing them to avoid eating and drinking before flights. Other concerns include lack of on-flight assistance, the likelihood that passengers with disabilities receive the wrong kind of wheelchair, and the possibility of wheelchair damage.
Josh Vander Vies, a well-known Paralympian and frequent flier, has suggested that airlines and airports could collaborate to provide better services to wheelchair users. In a 2010 post on his personal blog, Vander Vies recounted waiting an hour before getting his wheelchair on the plane, since transporting it from the nearest elevator to the tarmac can be a cumbersome process. He said he later learned that airlines couldn’t schedule his arrivals near the closest elevator because the airplane monopolized the arrangement of the gates.
In his blog post, Vander Vies also implored airlines to improve their booking system so that wheelchair-bound passengers could be booked on flights with sufficient space, and ensure that additional staff are on the ground to assist wheelchair users.
Seeing those improvements come to fruition, however, may be difficult. While the ADA does ensure protections for people with disabilities, businesses are only required to oblige in a manner that doesn’t cause “undue burden.” The definition of undue burden has been a topic of debate in the airline industry since the ADA’s passage, with some arguing that its vagueness allows airline companies to shortchange special needs passengers. For example, advocates tried to include internet as one of the amenities guaranteed in the ADA and the Air Carrier Access Act during a 2002 case. Efforts have also been made to better integrate blind people with seeing-eye dogs. Some airlines currently charge passengers for an additional seat if the dog cannot fit the available floor space.
Purcell hopes to make similar strides in her civil suit. Though it’s yet to be seen what will come out of her case, her lawyers have pointed to similar experiences of other passengers. Months before Purcell’s ordeal, American Airlines denied a cancer patient access to a wheelchair.