How to Make Air Travel More Accessible: A Conversation with Kelly Buckland

Kelly Buckland wasn’t sure he wanted to work for the government. As a power wheelchair user with quadriplegia and a disability rights advocate since 1979, his heart and his career have always been with the independent living movement. He helped found independent living centers in his home state of Idaho, before moving to the Washington, D.C., area to work for the National Council on Independent Living, most recently serving as executive director of NCIL from 2009-2021.

Following his retirement from NCIL, Buckland was appointed disability policy advisor at the Department of Transportation, a position he says he accepted because of the large infrastructure bill that Congress had just passed — which he called “a once-in-a-generation, trillion-dollar opportunity to make a difference in the built environment” — and the progress that had been made designing seating systems to allow wheelchair users to fly in their own wheelchairs.

While Buckland was serving under Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the DOT made headlines for a record $50 million fine against American Airlines for its treatment of disabled passengers; a rule that will require accessible bathrooms on single-aisle aircraft; and a 2024 rule that enhanced protections for disabled travelers.

Buckland’s appointment ended with the new administration. With recent news that a coalition of major airlines is suing to nullify some of those disability protections we talked with Buckland about what it was like working at the DOT, what he sees happening under the current administration and how wheelchair users can fight for safer, more accessible air travel.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

NM: Over the past few years there was a lot of news about airline accessibility advancements and improved disability protections for air travel. From the outside, it felt like the needs of disabled passengers were finally being taken seriously. What did it feel like working within the DOT at that time?

KB: What you saw from the outside was exactly what was happening on the inside. We got a lot done in three years.

Shortly after starting at the DOT, I got connected with a woman who had been working at the department for a while. She knew how it worked. I told her what I wanted to get done, and she put it into a plan of how to get it done – timelines, goals, objectives and all that. 

We had four pillars. One was making air travel safe and accessible. One was infrastructure, which included train travel and all station accessibility. The third was hiring people with disabilities both within and outside of the department. The fourth was on accessibility of autonomous and electric vehicles. It was a very ambitious plan.

When Secretary Buttigieg approved the plan he knew, at the time that the part about flying in in your own wheelchair was going to get a lot of pushback from the airlines.  He didn’t even hesitate.  Because he knew it was the right thing to do.

How much we were able to get done was largely due to the support I had putting it into a plan that fit with how the department operates, me knowing what the movement wanted to accomplish, and Secretary Pete being so supportive of disability issues. We moved forward with light speed.

NM: One of the biggest pieces of news during your tenure was the December 2024 rule that improved air travel protections for wheelchair users and other disabled passengers. Then, just as those rules were starting to take effect this year, a coalition of major air carriers sued the DOT to nullify at least some of those new protections. Is that lawsuit something you saw coming?

KB: We were not surprised. The airlines telegraphed in their comments to the proposed rule that they might file suit. The airlines’ complaint was that we overstepped our authority. So we took great care to make sure that whatever we put in the rule was based on authority given to the department by either the Air Carrier Access Act or the FAA Reauthorization Act.

The airlines were concerned that they were being held liable for stuff that wasn’t their fault or was out of their control. We took their comments under consideration, because they were making a good point — they shouldn’t be held responsible for stuff that they didn’t have any control over.

We thought we had addressed their concerns [in the final rule], but that’s still what they’re suing over.

NM: What do you think the effect will be for disabled travelers if that lawsuit is ultimately successful?

I’m afraid the whole rule may get thrown out and we’re back where we started. Lots of people put a lot of effort and years of work into this. I tried working with the airlines before I was at the department, and while I was at the department, and I just didn’t see things getting any better. People were getting hurt more often. More chairs were being damaged.

I really am concerned about the rule, and I want to see the rule stay in place, because people have to have some ability to feel like they’re safe when they fly. Everybody else presumes that they’re safe when they fly, except for us. People are getting significant injuries just trying to fly. And in fact, I think some people have had life threatening injuries as a result of flying.

If that was happening to a nondisabled person, we’d be having NTSB investigations and reports on how to never have this happen again, but I think it’s because we’re already kind of considered damaged goods that they don’t take it as seriously when we get hurt.

NM: What do you think are the most effective methods for wheelchair users to fight against these kinds of rollbacks and to push for better conditions in the future?

KB: People telling their stories. One of the biggest things that I saw the disability community do these past few years was really tell the stories about what was happening to them on airplanes. USA Today really did a good job of writing some exposes about how [wheelchair users] are getting treated on airlines. There were a lot of news stories. The most effective thing to really making things change is to get it out there in the media and get the general public, people who don’t have to deal with this stuff all the time, to understand what we’re dealing with.

NM: The holy grail for accessible air travel has been for wheelchair users to be able to fly in their own wheelchairs. What would it take to make that happen?

KB: Right now, if an airline wanted to, they could apply to the DOT to get certified to install a seat and fly people in their own chairs. All the requirements are basically in place. The type of wheelchair, the tie down system, all that stuff has already been determined.

There are four prototypes out there. Delta Flight Products has one, Boeing has one, Collins Aerospace has one and Airbus has one. Airlines would have to get [one of the systems] certified. That takes a while. Then, operationally there are some things they’d need to figure out, like where to put the oxygen masks so they would be usable by someone sitting in a wheelchair. They’ll have to rewrite all their policy manuals. That sort of operational stuff shouldn’t be discounted. It’s not hard, but it’s a little time consuming to get all that stuff put into place.

NM: Do you see that progress continuing given the pending lawsuit and the current political climate?

KB: That’s the issue at this point. I don’t know if the airlines will pick it up or not.

If I’d still been there, I would be encouraging the department move into rulemaking to make flying people in their own wheelchairs a requirement. They would have to start installing these systems as a requirement under the Air Carrier Access Act. But under this administration, rulemaking is really restricted, so that’s not likely to happen. At this point, airlines need to take the initiative.

NB: We recently published a couple of stories, first about my own experience with an air travel nightmare, and then another compiling our reader’s air travel horror stories. What’s the worst air travel experience you’ve ever had?

KB: I spent 11 hours on a plane just trying to get from Boise to Chicago. No opportunity to go to the rest room. Another time, I had to ride on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance to a hotel after a canceled flight because they didn’t have any accessible transportation. 

I’ve also had my chair destroyed. I can’t even remember how many chairs airlines have purchased to replace the ones that they’ve damaged. The worst, I was flying home from from DC to Boise. I get to Boise, and they can’t bring my chair to the plane — it’s too damaged. I get to baggage and my chair is basically a pile of metal. I mean, it’s not even recognizable as a chair anymore.

What happened was the plane was a 757 or something like that — a big airplane. They were sending my chair up the conveyor belt, and it got caught on the doorway of the baggage compartment. The door pushed my chair off the conveyor belt, so it fell all the way to the tarmac. And when it hit the tarmac, it just folded like a house of cards.

NM: For disabled travelers who are mistreated by airlines, what to you recommend we do, both to get immediate redress from the airline and to hold them accountable for any rules or policies they may have violated?

KB: It’s important people stand up for their rights. I think a lot of people just kind of want to be done with it and move on. I really encourage people to hang in there and continue to advocate for themselves. You also need to advocate for a choice too, because a lot of times the airlines will try to force you into a certain repair place to repair your equipment. And you should make sure that you know what your choices are, and not just go with what they offer.

Also, you need to file complaints, whether they go anywhere or not. File a complaint with the airline and with the with the Department of Transportation. At least that way, it’s on record. One of the reasons that we’re able to fine American Airlines $50 million is because there’s a set amount you can fine an airline for each individual violation. Each violation isn’t that much money, but we went back to count every complaint since the pandemic to the present. All of them added together is why it came to $50 million. If those complaints had not been on record, we couldn’t have counted them.

NM: What is your argument to convince skeptics who don’t believe we should be aggressively regulating or putting more rules on airlines?

KB: First, I agree with them. The best way to address any of this stuff is for the airlines to fix it. The problem is they’re not.

I took my first airplane ride when I was 21, which would have been about 1975. The treatment I got, and that my wheelchair got, was better in 1975 than it is today. It’s gotten continually worse over all those decades, not better.

So there have to be rules. Not just for our sake, but I think also for the airlines’ sake. It puts in writing what the expectations are, so airlines know what the rules are, and their employees know what the rules are. I think rules are really important for those reasons.

I really, really would like to see airlines fix this on their own. That would be the best way for everybody. But that’s not the reality.