Flight: Seat allocation for disabled passengers
from Jürgen Vogl
One specific case involved a young passenger who was traveling with her parents. As she needed additional care on the plane and a seat with a little more legroom due to her disability, her father requested a reservation for two seats in the first row for his daughter and her mother, who would take care of her during the flight, at the time of booking (and therefore several months before the planned departure). For the outward flight, the father was able to make a reservation in the first row against payment of a corresponding surcharge, but was denied a reservation in the first row of seats for the return flight. The persons concerned were booked in the fifth row of seats and could not reserve seats in the first row on their own (not even by paying a surcharge). As weeks of correspondence with the airline did not lead to any success, the father turned to apf.
The apf opened an arbitration procedure and attempted to reach a solution. As the airline did not respond to the letters from the apf, the arbitration procedure had to be discontinued without result after several appeals. The only option for those affected was therefore to use the seats in row five on their return flight, which meant some inconvenience when looking after their daughter.
As the company had not participated in the arbitration procedure and had made no effort to address the needs of the passenger concerned, apf filed an administrative penalty complaint against the airline's managing director after the arbitration procedure had been concluded. Faced with a possible administrative penalty, he sought a dialog with the apf. As a result, the airline agreed to discontinue the administrative penalty proceedings after the family concerned received an apology from the airline as well as an individual offer of compensation.