Disability Travel | The Airport Website Gold Standard
Planning is essential to disability travel preparations; information gathering is the crucial part of the planning. The Reduced Mobility Rights Airport Website Gold Standard defines ideal characteristics and structure of any airport website page dedicated to services for people with reduced mobility.
While evaluating information available on airport websites we noticed how some information, important to people with reduced mobility, was missing. The Airport Website Gold Standard aims to help airport managing body to craft their websites’ page dedicated to disabled passengers services in a user-friendly, comprehensive, and thorough manner.
The basic criteria of the Airport Website Gold Standard are the easily accessible understanding of “who does what, where, when, and how” equation.
Service Providers
It is necessary to passengers to access the details of the airport provider of services for people with reduced mobility in an easy fashion. Information shall contain the name of the company, the headquarter address, the agent or customer services area within the airport building, the direct phone number and possibly an email address.
While legal liability rests with the airport managing body, it is vital for passengers to be able to access a representative of the service provider to ensure prompt resolution of minor service glitches such as delayed availability of services or equipment replacement with hardware more suited to the individual needs of the PRM.
Services
All available services must be listed on the web page, including a list of available resources such as ambulifts or specific types of wheelchairs. Services aimed at assistance to disabled children shall be clearly marked. It is essential that the service provider contact information is quoted in this section.
Locations
Meeting points, as well as waiting areas pre-boarding lounges shall be clearly identified in a simple yet easily understandable manner. The addition of a map of such locations available for download is strongly recommended.
Quality Standards
EU regulation 1107/2006 obliges airport managing bodies to produce quality standards. These standards define the timeframe within which airport services shall be provided to people with reduced mobility (see example here – downloads a .pdf file). To meet criteria of the Airport Website Gold Standard, the special assistance page shall provide users a complete list of the airport quality standards.
Contact / Complaint Procedure
The page shall clearly describe a complaint mechanism to help those disabled passengers who believe were provided services below acceptable standards submitting their complaint.
Contact / Complaint Form
The web page shall contain an easily accessible contact / complaint form. If technically difficult to put in already existing website structures, a clearly visible link to a contact / complaint form can be used instead of the form immediately available on the page.
Printable information available for download
The page shall make these printable information available for download:
EU regulation 1107/2006 – Annex I
Airport Quality Standards
Service Provider contact information
Airport Terminal Building Map (possibly indicating PRMs' meeting points and waiting areas)
Useful Links
The page may contain links to available online resources. Among these links, the page shall contain a link to the Civil Aviation Authority website.
Reduced Mobility Rights will continue assessing airports existing pages and is available to assist managing bodies to craft their special assistance page in such way it meets the Airport Website Gold Standard. The common goal is to ensure disabled passengers have access to all information they need to help them enjoy hassle-free travel experiences.
