November 29th 2023.
Two American Airlines employees made a grave mistake on the job, as evidenced by a video that went viral on TikTok. The footage showed the employees carelessly throwing a wheelchair from the gate to the tarmac at Terminal E at the Miami International Airport.
Upon viewing the video, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg took to Twitter to express his outrage. He wrote, “This is totally unacceptable. We’ll be investigating. This is exactly why we are taking action to protect passengers who use wheelchairs. Everyone deserves to travel safely and with dignity”. He then provided a link that detailed how the Department of Transportation is working to increase accessibility for people with disabilities.
Additionally, complaints made to the DOT regarding disabilities have been on the rise since 2020. Data from 2022 showed that airlines were responsible for 941 wheelchairs being mishandled. In response, Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Deb Fischer introduced a bill to bring transparency to disability-related complaints in the airline industry.
American Airlines released a statement, saying, “We recognize how important it is to support the independence of customers with disabilities by ensuring the proper care of mobility devices throughout their journey with us. This visual is deeply concerning, and we are gathering more details so that we can address them with our team. We will continue to work hard to improve our handling of assistive devices across our network.”
At this time, it is unknown whether the employees in the video are still employed by the airline. The federal investigation is ongoing.
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