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The Physical
Disability Council of New South Wales (PDCN)
objects strenuously to the application for
exemption from the DDA submitted by Kendell
Airlines. In summary, our reasons for objecting
are as follows:
- Kendell Airlines
offers no explanation of the reasons for or
basis of their application for exemption.
- Kendell Airlines
offers no explanation that might answer the
question why now?
- People with
disability, including wheelchair users, can
and do fly in Australia travelling in
aircraft with 35 passenger seats and
fewer.
- Indeed, to our sure
and certain knowledge, people with
disability, including wheelchair users, not
only fly in such small aircraft but a small,
intrepid band hold pilot’s licences and
fly small aircraft.
- People with
disability, including wheelchair users, have
been flying as passengers in Australia in
low-capacity craft for many years. No recent
structural, systemic, cultural, social,
civil, design, aviation, transport,
physiological, psychological or similar
development, change or set of circumstances
have occurred to make the carrying of
passengers with disabilities more
problematic, time consuming or costly than in
earlier periods of Australian aviation
history, when small capacity aircraft carried
passengers with disabilities up and down and
across Australia. (As they still do
today).
- No material factor or
set of circumstances has been advanced by
Kendell Airlines to warrant the granting of
an exemption from the DDA by the
HREOC.
- PDCN believes it can
be argued, without apparent contradiction
from Kendell Airlines, that the motive for
seeking the exemption from the DDA is an
attempt to avoid, reduce, defray or delay
normal, reasonable, and necessary business
costs, which Kendell Airlines, as a
commercial operation, would prefer not to
pay. Increasing or maintaining profit margins
and/or market share ratios are not grounds
for granting an exemption from the law of the
land.
- Much of Kendell
Airline’s application seems to be
‘cut and paste’ exercise from other
documents, some and/or most of which seem not
to be relevant to Kendell Airlines
specifically or its potential or actual
passengers with disability or which provide
any genuine reasons that might explain why an
exemption could be sought or should be
granted.
- We understand Kendell
Airlines to be saying that although no
unreasonable hardship is created by carrying
passengers with disability and although
passengers with disability can and do fly in
small aircraft we just cannot be bothered to
take the time and make the effort to meet the
transport needs of all our potential
customers even though we belong to an
aviation corporate group with state,
interstate, national, international and
global service sections. PDCN understands
this approach to be discriminatory. It ought
not to be exempted from the provisions of the
DDA.
- Australia is a large
country. Air travel is uniquely important to
the lives of people with disability living in
or travelling to rural, remote or distant
parts of what the world acknowledges is an
island continent. Air travel is, for many,
not a luxury but a necessity. For many
people, in many circumstances, making many
journeys, air travel is the only practical
option. People with disability are an
important minority section of the potential
customer base of airlines serving any and all
destinations. On those routes served by
airlines such as Kendell Airlines, using low
capacity aircraft, people with disability are
not able to make a choice between a 35 or
less seat plane on the one hand or a 200, 300
or 400 seat inter-continental jet on the
other. No passengers have such choices. The
nature of the market restricts the range of
aircraft in service and limits customer
choice. In such circumstances, no potential
or actual provider of air travel services
should be exempted from an obligation to
carry all types of customer. We repeat that
it is self-evidently clear from the current
practices of Kendell Airlines and other
service providers that people with
disability, including wheelchair users, can
and do fly on small planes.
PDCN believes that there must
no negative change to the status quo, which would
further restrict the air transport choices of
people with disability. Indeed we believe that
evidence exists from current Australian practice
and in the experience of American aviation services
(see Web site http://www.dotcr.ost.dot.gov/asp/acc.asp)
to indicate that people with disability can and
should be incorporated within the customer profile
of all providers of air travel using small capacity
aircraft. The requirement to provide such equality
of treatment creates no unreasonable or
unjustifiable hardship for any aircraft operator.
We respectfully submit that Kendell Airlines
application should be rejected by the
HREOC.
Application to HREOC for exemption to the DDA
by Kendell Airlines, 2000
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