Making air travel accessible for people with disability

Equal access to air travel

Many people with disability experience barriers to air travel. These can occur at different points of the journey, such as booking a flight, getting through the airport, checking in for a flight or boarding a plane.   The Australian Government is introducing reforms as part of the 2024 Aviation White Paper. Through these reforms, the Australian Human Rights Commission (Commission) is calling for people with disability to access air travel on an equal basis with others.

You can read the Commission’s media release welcoming the Australian Government’s White Paper from August 2024.

Aviation Disability Standards

The Australian government is developing aviation-specific disability standards, to be made as a schedule to the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002 (Cth) under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth). The standards will apply to the air travel industry and will clarify and reinforce the aviation industry’s existing obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act in Australia. They will do this by setting out the minimum baseline for accessibility across the whole air travel journey.

We strongly support the introduction of Aviation Disability Standards as a crucial step towards facilitating the right of people with disability to access air travel on equal basis with others. The Commission is a member of the group co-designing the new aviation-specific disability standards.

Our submission to the consultation on draft Standards outlines that it is critical for the Aviation Disability Standards to:

• prioritise and promote the dignity, independence, mobility, autonomy and participation of people with disability across the whole aviation journey
• seek to ensure people with disability can access air travel on an equal basis with other
• have appropriate and effective enforcement and compliance mechanisms
• provide the necessary clarity to ensure consistency across the sector and that airline and airport compliance can be assessed
• ensure there is consistency across the whole aviation journey regarding access to information.

Other air travel reforms

The Australian Government has introduced the Aviation Consumer Protections Bill 2026 to establish an Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme (an independent, accessible complaint handling service for air travel customers) and an Aviation Customer Rights Charter (this will be a law that sets out the rights of customers when accessing air travel). Stronger consumer protections will improve access to justice and will go some way towards ensuring people with disability can access air travel on an equal basis with others.

We have made submissions to a range of government consultations about air travel reforms.

Further information about accessible air travel

To find out more about accessible air travel visit the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts' website on aviation.