More than half of the mainland's 24 airlines have rules saying staff may refuse to allow disabled passengers on board if they might offend other passengers or make them uncomfortable, a recent study found.
Twenty-two airlines also have rules that allow them to reject those who have not given advance notification of their disability, and eight airlines mandate that disabled people have to apply for permission to fly and can only get that permission at several designated sales outlets, according to a report released yesterday by the Equity and Justice Initiative, a Shenzhen-based anti-discrimination advocacy group.
The non-governmental organisation said the often-cited reasons for airlines refusing to allow disabled people on board were that they had not applied in advance, they could not produce medical certificates or they may 'cause discomfort or offence among other passengers'.
The report said these practices violated the mainland's anti-discrimination laws, but were in line with the outdated policies of the Civil Aviation Administration of China - the industry regulator.
'Those rules are extremely backwards and need to be scrapped ... and the rule that says the disabled may be rejected because they may cause offence is even more ridiculous,' said Liu Xiaohu , a project co-ordinator at the Equity and Justice Initiative who co-wrote the report.
'There are more than 80 million disabled people in China, but you see very few of them out and about,' he said. 'That's because there are hardly any facilities for the disabled on public transport or at venues. Their needs are often overlooked.'
Phone calls to the press office of the Civil Aviation Administration went unanswered yesterday.
