Regulator finds disabled passengers missed flights due to Heathrow’s failings

Bristol, Leeds Bradford and Luton airports were also criticised for their ‘unacceptable level of service to disabled people’.

Neil Lancefield
Tuesday 13 December 2022 03:04 EST
Many disabled and less mobile passengers missed summer flights at Heathrow due to the airport’s poor accessibility performance, the aviation regulator has found (Andriy Popov/Alamy/PA)
Many disabled and less mobile passengers missed summer flights at Heathrow due to the airport’s poor accessibility performance, the aviation regulator has found (Andriy Popov/Alamy/PA)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Many disabled and less mobile passengers missed summer flights at Heathrow due to the airport’s poor accessibility performance, the aviation regulator has found.

Bristol, Leeds Bradford and Luton Airports were also criticised by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for their “unacceptable level of service to disabled people”.

The CAA did not specify how many passengers missed flights at Heathrow but described the total as “unacceptable”.

Its report highlighted the “particularly poor performance” at Terminal 5, where “many passengers” did not make connecting departures.

Some disabled and less mobile passengers at the west London airport’s Terminal 3 were also forced to wait for more than an hour to be transferred from one piece of equipment to another.

That contravened CAA guidance.

Aberdeen, Belfast International, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London City Airports were rated as “very good” for their accessibility performance during the whole period analysed, which was between the start of April and the end of October.

Paul Smith, director of consumers at the CAA, said: “The aviation industry has faced unprecedented challenges, but too many passengers at UK airports have been waiting for unacceptable amounts of time for assistance on arriving flights on too many occasions.

We strongly believe that everyone should have access to air travel

Paul Smith, CAA

“We strongly believe that everyone should have access to air travel, and we welcome the substantial improvements that airports have made for disabled and less mobile passengers.

“We will continue to consider whether we need to take further action where airports are not delivering an acceptable level of performance, and not showing sufficient and sustained improvements.

“We want to see immediate further improvements, as well as airports being well prepared to provide a high-quality service during next year.”

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in