Air travel can provide efficient access to many experiences that offer a wide range of benefits including broadening the opportunities to receive health care, education, professional development and business opportunities as well as leisure. However, many people with disabilities have difficulty realizing these benefits because of a lack of accessibility in the air travel industry.
The KITE Research Institute hosted the Accessible Air Travel Forum, on September 11, 2025, to highlight the existing accessibility problems and to shine a spotlight on people and organizations working on promising solutions. Attendees included representatives of airlines (Air Canada, Westjet, Jazz, Perimeter) and airports (the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, the Ottawa International Airport Authority), wheelchair vendors (Motion), regulators (Canadian Transport Agency, the International Air Transport Association), researchers (Université Laval, University of Toronto and the KITE Research Institute), standards organizations (Accessibility Standards Canada), disability organizations (Rick Hansen, AccessNow), federal government representatives (Canada’s Chief Accessibility Officer, Stephanie Cadieaux) as well as people with lived experience.
Keynote talks were given by Cadieaux and Maayan Ziv, with both underscoring many of the negative impacts of accessibility barriers during air travel as well as the surprising lack of empathy from staff that is encountered too often. Additionally, the Forum featured 20 presenters over the day by asking most speakers to keep their remarks short (8 to10 minutes each).
Key themes that emerged from the day included the need for better training to raise awareness of the accessibility barriers that exist, better communication, improving accessibility of airports/aircraft of the future and to consider the global nature of the problem, including the challenges faced by passengers with disabilities in remote areas. Presenters also highlighted the need for more time passengers with disabilities during boarding an aircraft and that social media can be a powerful tool to highlight problems when problems are not addressed appropriately.
A number of successful approaches for improving accessibility were shared, including the hidden disabilities sunflower lanyard program used by Air Canada, the Ready Set Fly program run by the Greater Toronto Airport Authority and the Check and Give Protection To red tag program used by WestJet that Julie Sawchuk described, sharing how much it reduce her fear and anxiety about her wheelchair when she travels by air. Finally, Christopher Wood from Air4All highlighted a solution that could address many accessibility barriers if incorporated in the next generation of aircraft. He described the design of a prototype airline seat created by Delta Flight Products that folds out of the way to create space, allowing wheelchair users to stay in their chairs during air travel. Videos from the event can be viewed at engineeringhealth.ca/airtravel.
While a broad range of accessibility barriers were discussed, a key focus of the Accessible Air Travel Forum was to address the risk of wheelchairs being damaged or lost during air travel. A number of presenters highlighted the range of negative impacts a lost or damaged device can have for its owner, including the loss of independence and risk of pressure injuries. Asha Buliung, a youth advocate, shared that she chooses to travel with a manual chair instead of her power wheelchair, even though it means she loses her independence, because of the fear of her power chair being damaged. Â Linda Norton and Stacey Burnett from Motion underscored the fact that wheelchairs are highly customized, expensive devices that take a long time to replace and leave the user at risk of pressure injuries while they remain without a replacement. I also gave an overview of my four-year project to identify and address the causes of damage mobility devices in wheelchairs and shared four preliminary recommendations for how wheelchairs should be loaded/unloaded and secured inside aircraft cargo spaces to reduce the risk of damage. These recommendations will be used to inform a new federal air travel accessibility standard created by Accessibility Standards Canada.
The success of the Forum highlighted the need to create a working group for those interested in improving air travel accessibility and a longer three-day conference to bring together more relevant organizations. The KITE Research Institute is planning to run the 2027 International Conference on Air Travel Accessibility during National AccessAbility Week (May 25-27, 2027). You can sign up for updates on this conference at engineeringhealth.ca/airtravel. In particular, two additional groups that we hope will attend the conference are wheelchair manufacturers and companies that specialize in securing wheelchairs for transportation (e.g., Q’straint). Please email me (Tilak.Dutta@uhn.ca) if you belong to these or other groups and would be willing to provide your expertise to help prevent damage to wheelchairs during air travel.
Tilak may be reached at Tilak.Dutta@uhn.ca
Tilak Dutta is a senior scientist at KITE Research Institute, the research arm of Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, and holds an appointment as an associate professor at the University of Toronto at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute. The goal of Dutta’s team is to give individuals with disabilities and their caregivers the tools they need to realize their full potential. His team’s ongoing projects include preventing falls in icy winter weather through developing and evaluating winter footwear with advanced slip resistance, improving pedestrian safety at intersections and on sidewalks using computer vision, preventing back pain for paid and unpaid caregivers using wearable devices like PostureCoach and removing stubborn barriers to accessibility.
Linda may be reached at Linda.Norton@Motioncares.ca.Â
Linda Norton, B.Sc.OT, MSc. CH, Ph.D., OT Reg (ONT) is an Occupational Therapist who is passionate about the provision of appropriate seating and mobility equipment and the prevention of chronic wounds. Her diverse experience in various settings including hospital, community, and industry; and in various roles including clinician, educator, manager, and researcher, gives Linda a unique perspective. Wound prevention and management are also Linda’s passions. She has completed the International Interprofessional Wound Care Course (IIWCC), a Master’s in Community Health focusing on pressure injury prevention, and a Ph.D. in Occupational Science focusing