Flightmapping > News > Feb 04 > Ryanair wheelchairs on flights
RYANAIR'S WHEELCHAIR POLICY IN RELATION TO THE ROSS CASE
- Ryanair has NEVER charged any wheelchair passenger for assistance at ANY airport including Stansted.
- Ryanair pays for the £18.00 cost of assistance at Stansted for passengers with wheelchairs and the tiny minority of other airports around Europe where this service is not provided free of charge by the Airport Operator.
- Mr. Ross was not travelling with a wheelchair and was travelling to the South of France on a £10.00 ticket.
- The cost of providing wheelchair service to Mr. Ross was £18.00 (almost twice the air fare) and he paid the airport service provider in Stansted- NOT RYANAIR - to get through BAA's complicated terminal building at Stansted.
- Mr. Ross did not pay Ryanair. Ryanair has no dispute with Mr. Ross or his need for wheelchair assistance.
- Ryanair flies to 86 airports throughout Europe, and at 80 of these airports wheelchair assistance is provided FREE of CHARGE by the airport owner/operator.
- Ryanair strongly believes that BAA, the world's most profitable airport operator, should provide wheelchair assistance FREE of CHARGE just like the vast majority of other airports in Europe. This would also bring Stansted into line with the latest guidance from the European Commission Transport Directorate, which states that wheelchair access is "the responsibility of the airport operator in their facility.
- Ryanair is appealing the defective judgement in the Ross case, not against Mr. Ross - but in order to force BAA Stansted to accept their responsibilities to disabled passengers using their airport facilities.
- Until this unjust decision is overturned in the Appeal Court, and BAA Stansted are forced to accept their responsibilities towards passengers of limited mobility, (like Mr. Ross), Ryanair regrettably will be levying a small charge of £0.35 or €0.50 on every passenger carried, in order to defray the cost of providing wheelchair assistance to all passengers.
- This small charge is transparent to all Ryanair customers and not hidden secretly in very high ticket costs like other airlines.
- Ryanair does not want this levy in place at all and it will be immediately removed when the appeal is successful. The amount of the levy will be continously reviewed upwards or downwards to ensure Ryanair collects only what is required to cover the provision of assistance at Stansted.
- Ryanair sincerely regrets any inconvenience caused to passengers by Stansted's refusal to provide free of charge assistance service to disabled people using its own airport terminal building.
Flightmapping comment:
The argument about the costs of providing wheelchairs at Stansted is a reasonable one. £18 certainly seems like a ridiculous charge to pay for what is effectively and essential piece of equipment.
However, Ryanair's response to this effectively means that all passengers will be penalised. 35p per passenger might not sound like much, but this adds up very quickly to £35 per flight, assuming 100 passengers. The majority of Ryanair flights do not involve passengers using wheelchairs, and even if they did average one paid wheelchair per flight, this would still result in an extra profit of £17 on each Ryanair flight. The least Ryanair could do with this extra cash is donate it disability charities.
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