Ryanair changes policy over sight-impaired passengers

Budget airline Ryanair is to change its policy on carrying sight-impaired passengers following criticism of its decision to eject blind travellers from a flight.

The low-fare Irish airline today said vision-impaired passengers who are travelling with a sighted companion on a one-to-one basis would no longer be required to inform the airline in advance.

Ryanair also said these travellers would not be included in its limit of four reduced-mobility passengers per flight.

But the no-frills carrier added that vision-impaired passengers travelling alone would remain part of the rule.

Disabled groups attacked Ryanair last month when it emerged that, in September, a group of nine blind and partially-sighted people from Norwich had boarded a plane at Stansted airport en route to Italy but were told to get off because the four-person quota had been reached.

Today’s change of policy followed consultation with the National Council for the Blind of Ireland.

The council’s chief executive Des Kenny said: “Ryanair are to be congratulated for taking the lead in improving what has been a problematic area for vision-impaired passengers when flying.

“It is also a major step forward for the European aviation industry as a whole and I hope that other airlines will follow Ryanair’s example.”

Ryanair’s head of customer services Caroline Green said: “This year we will carry 35 million passengers and we are committed to ensuring that all consumers can take advantage of our low fares.

“This is a common sense change, which follows an incident where a group of vision impaired passengers were not able to travel because the aircraft safety limit for reduced mobility passengers was exceeded.

“This policy change will increase the number of vision-impaired customers able to travel with us, as the aircraft safety restriction will not apply when a vision-impaired passenger is travelling with a sighted companion on a one-to-one basis.

“However, vision-impaired passengers travelling alone remain part of the safety limit of four reduced mobility passengers per flight and will still be required to pre-advise us of their condition, or special assistance requirements, so that we may continue to provide them with priority services.”