Better Airplane Bathrooms? Yes, please!

Airplane bathrooms are not accessible to many of us with disabilities. If we have to fly, we must think carefully about how to manage a flight without needing to use one.

We may choose an itinerary with shorter, more frequent legs so that we can use the airport facilities, even though it is much more inconvenient for our travel schedule. We might have to use adult diapers during the flight even though we wouldn’t normally need them. Or perhaps we purposefully dehydrate ourselves. None of these are good solutions.

Effective October 23, 2023, the Department of Transportation’s Air Carrier Access Act has an added requirement that all new single-aisle planes must have lavatories large enough so that a person with a disability plus an attendant can get into and move around within them. 

This should make all of us more comfortable on long flights.

Flying In Your Wheelchair?

Maybe it won’t be a fantasy in the future.

Can you imagine not having to go through the anxiety of checking your wheelchair and hoping the baggage handlers treat it gently? Won’t it be great when you don’t have to be pushed on one of those silly uncomfortable transfer chairs down the aisle? No more hauling you across armrests and dropping you into a seat that’s the wrong shape with a back at the wrong angle. 

On May 31, 2023, Delta Flight Products announced that, in partnership with Air4All, it was developing a prototype of a special airplane seat that would allow those of us who use power wheelchairs to stay in our chairs during a plane flight. The new design will have to be manufactured, tested, and then certified to be safe before we will see them on a plane.

How it will work is that a regular passenger seat is covered into a tie-down space in less than 2 minutes. Then the electric chair moves into place and is secured with straps as it is in vans and buses. Watch the demo videos here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkBQ7kaS8Bc&t=89s

and here: 

https://air4all.net/

This will be much more comfortable and more dignified than how those of us in power chairs have had to travel in the past. Can’t wait to try it out!

The Air Carrier Access Amendments Act of 2023

The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) became law in the US in 1986. It intends to guarantee everyone with a disability nondiscriminatory treatment on domestic and foreign airlines within the US. Regulations issued in 1990 set requirements for airlines. Some deal with aircraft design, but most require nondiscriminatory practices. For example, an airline can’t deny transporting a person with a disability except under very limited circumstances. Aircraft design requirements relate to movable aisle seat armrests, accessible lavatories, and in-cabin stowage for collapsible manual wheelchairs. (The European Union has similar requirements about accessibility of air travel.)

In early 2023, Representative Dina Titus and Senator Tammy Baldwin introduced the Air Carrier Access Amendments Act of 2023 to address ongoing issues people with disabilities face during air travel. These amendments include:

• Requiring the Secretary of Transportation to set standards for accessibility of elements of air travel, including ticketing and customer service, announcements, boarding and deplaning, seating, lavatories, and stowage of assistive devices.
• Requiring airlines to comply with these standards within 5 years of their issuance.
• Requiring the Secretary of Transportation to assess civil penalties of violations of the ACAA.

The bill was referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. You may wish to contact your senators and representatives to encourage them to support these vital amendments or to reintroduce the bill again in the future. To find out how to contact your lawmakers, consult the Find Your Congress Member tool.

December 2-6, 2024 is National Influenza Vaccination Week

Because people are more likely to be gathering in groups indoors during the winter holiday months, it is important to get your annual flu shot. This is free at your local pharmacy for most people in the US.

Flu, or influenza, is caused by one of several related viruses. It is spread by droplets that are sprayed into the air when an infected person sneezes, coughs or talks. That makes flu a highly contagious disease, especially since an infected person can spread the virus even before they begin to show symptoms.

In ordinary, non-pandemic flu seasons, about one in every ten persons gets the flu. It hits children before the age of 18 the hardest. People over age 65 are least likely to get the flu, although they are often more severely affected.

Every year a new flu vaccine is created. The vaccine makers try to predict which variations of the virus will be prevalent in the coming flu season. In the flu season just beginning now, the two most common strains of the flu are H1N1 and H3N2.

Getting a flu shot causes antibodies to develop in the body about two weeks later. These antibodies provide protection against infection by the viruses that are in the vaccine. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that everyone 6 months and older, particularly those at special risk, including young children, pregnant women, and people with chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart and lung conditions, should get a flu vaccination every year.

To learn more about flu vaccination, visit the poster set on Healthinfo Island at this SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Healthinfo%20Island/172/155/22

To learn more about influenza viruses, visit the poster set at this SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Healthinfo%20Island/114/79/24