Bristol Airport has been criticised by the Civil Aviation Authority for its “unacceptable level of service to disabled people". Its report highlighted that between April and October 2022, the airport's overall performance for pre-booked disabled and less mobile passengers had "fallen below" the CAA's arrival standards due to "essential equipment being unavailable" during the busy summer period.
A spokesperson for Bristol Airport said: “We are disappointed with the results of the recent CAA disability survey. Record numbers of customers with disabilities are travelling through the airport year on year, and we take it very seriously to provide assistance and help that meets individual customer needs.”
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The CAA's findings did say the airport had "shown commitment to making improvements" by "implementing an improvement plan and setting up an operational improvement group".
The Bristol Airport spokesperson added: "We will continue to work with OCS, the special assistance provider, to provide consistent and high-quality assistance to all customers and put remedial plans in place to address the issues to ensure we continue providing high levels of service and assistance, our customers expect."
Other airports - Leeds Bradford and Luton - were criticised along with Britain’s biggest - Heathrow in the CAA's interim airport accessibility report. The regulator said many disabled and less mobile passengers missed summer flights at Heathrow due to its poor accessibility performance. The report will be followed up by a full-year performance report that will include all airports handling more than 150,000 passengers a year, to be published in summer 2023.
Paul Smith, director of consumers at the CAA, said: “The aviation industry has faced unprecedented challenges, but too many passengers at UK airports have been waiting for unacceptable amounts of time for assistance on arriving flights on too many occasions. We strongly believe that everyone should have access to air travel, and we welcome the substantial improvements that airports have made for disabled and less mobile passengers.
“We will continue to consider whether we need to take further action where airports are not delivering an acceptable level of performance, and not showing sufficient and sustained improvements. We want to see immediate further improvements, as well as airports being well prepared to provide a high-quality service during next year.”
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