Rosemary Kayess: New aviation standards promise dignity by design | The Area News

Rosemary Kayess, Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner, reflects on her personal experiences navigating air travel as a person with a spinal cord injury who uses a wheelchair. She describes the multitude of challenges and indignities she faces, from the constant reminder of her "irrelevance and inconvenience," to the logistical nightmares of getting her wheelchair to and from the aircraft safely.

The federal government's aviation white paper acknowledges these issues and has committed to implementing aviation-specific disability standards. Kayess hopes these new standards will establish a consistent pre-approval process for mobility devices and batteries, allow collapsible manual wheelchairs in cabins, mandate purpose-built protective containers for wheelchairs, set minimum design requirements for cabin layouts, and require competency-based training for staff.

She emphasizes these standards must be properly enforced and that dignity and access are not upgrades, but rather the minimum standards for a country whose public transport must serve the public in all its diversity. Kayess urges public input on the Aviation Disability Standards to ensure these minimum standards are met.