The 12^th December 2016 marked the final deadline for airlines to comply with the US DOT / Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA).  Your airline should now have ensured that all of its websites are accessible to all customers, including those with disabilities.  Are you there yet?  In reality, very few carriers (if any) have managed to achieve this goal.

The date of the initial objective passed on 12 December 2015; this required all US and foreign airlines (that market air transportation services to US consumers for any routes to or from the United States) to make the core booking and reservation pages compliant.  A recent Sitemorse compliance audit across global airlines highlighted that this wasn’t achieved, with just 2% of pages passing.

Is the objective too difficult, not required, or simply being ignored?

What the act seeks to address affects all airlines, and will need to be broached regardless of the legal ramifications. The consequences of not doing so are likely to result in customer dissatisfaction and ultimately a loss of trade. However, in the years since notifcation little progress has been made in carriers becoming compliant with the Act. Making headway in improving is a challenging but not insurmountable goal, one which starts with dealing with priorities. Further details in the full report.

What is the solution?

Part of the answer lies with automation, however priorities also need to be put in place to make progressive steps in order to get there.  Manual adjustments can address small issues at a local level, but they aren’t a practical solution for an organisation with multiple sites that is dealing with frequently changing legislation and its own internal guidelines. 

Achieving the AA compliance required by the US Department of Transportation (DOT), the initiator of the Act, will however still prove difficult to achieve.  In fact, the DOT themselves have yet to achieve the level of accessibility that they are requesting of the airlines.

Setting industry specific accessibility priorities would be a positive first move, because it would make the task of airlines measurable and more achievable. In the absence of this, airlines can still put their own priorities in place that will help them take steps towards compliance.  Further details about this and the results of the airline websites tested can be found in the Sitemorse Global Airlines Audit.