Opinion ID: 446761
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Who tenders payment for air transportation;

Text: 92 (2) Whose carriage will not violate the requirements of the Federal Aviation Regulations, ... or, in the reasonable expectation of carrier personnel ..., jeopardize the safe completion of the flight or the health or safety of other persons; and 93 (3) Who is willing and able to comply with reasonable requests of the airline personnel or, if not, is accompanied by a responsible adult passenger who can ensure that the requests are complied with. A request will not be considered reasonable if(i) It is inconsistent with this part; or 94 (ii) It is neither safety-related nor necessary for the provision of air transportation. 183 95 Petitioners contend that by selectively imposing requirements on handicapped persons which are not imposed upon other passengers and prospective passengers, the CAB's definition of qualified handicapped person violates section 504. In addition, they argue that the definition lacks objective guidelines or criteria that would limit arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory requests or demands by airline personnel. 184 96 The record reveals, and it is uncontested, that numerous incidents of arbitrary refusals of service and of irrational decisions by airline personnel concerning the qualifications of handicapped individuals have occurred. 185 Unwarranted assumptions and stereotypes have clearly caused airline personnel to discriminate against disabled passengers. 186 Yet, the record suggests that the Board was sensitive to such concerns and others voiced by handicapped individuals and their representatives, 187 and it is far from clear that amending the definition of qualified handicapped individual would provide any remedy more meaningful than that provided by the rules as they now exist. 97 Decisions involving safety, especially, require the granting of a certain amount of discretion to airline personnel. Individuals differ considerably, sometimes dramatically, in their abilities as well as in their disabilities. What is an unreasonable or unwarranted request when made of one handicapped person may be perfectly legitimate when made of another. Because of the unique nature of every individual, because of the infinite variety of disabling conditions and the varying extent to which they may handicap a particular person, the vesting of some discretion in airline personnel to make case-by-case determinations is unavoidable. This is especially so where, just as individuals differ, so do airlines and aircraft. A wide-bodied jet may present different safety concerns or space limitations than a smaller jet or a much smaller piston-powered aircraft. 188 In this situation, some discretionary decisionmaking on the part of airline personnel is inevitable. 98 The risk that arbitrary or irrational decisions may occasionally be made, of course, follows the grant of decisional discretion as night follows the day. The final regulations promulgated by the CAB, however, have significantly limited the discretion of airline personnel. 189 For example, section 382.13(a) of the Final Rule creates a presumption that every handicapped person is a qualified handicapped person unless a carrier has a reasonable, specific basis for doubting those qualifications. 190 Moreover, 99 A carrier shall not refuse transportation to the handicapped person unless an agency or employee designated by the carrier to make such determinations and familiar with the carrier's standards and procedures for such determinations reasonably believes on the basis of available information, including any presented by the handicapped person, that the person is not a qualified handicapped person. 191 100 Section 382.13(e) requires that [t]he name of the employee designated by the carrier to refuse service or require an attendant ... shall be made known to ticket and reservation agents, who shall inform any person who requests that name. 192 From the outset, any request made of a handicapped person must be reasonable and either safety related or necessary for the provision of air transportation. 193 And, of course, no carrier may [e]xclude a qualified handicapped person from or deny that person the benefit of any air transportation or related services that are available to other passengers.... 194 101 Thus, we are not presented with a case of unbridled discretion but instead with a situation where discretionary, case-by-case decisions are mandatory. We are not presented with a case involving relatively unambiguous distinctions based upon gender or race but instead with the endless complexities of handicapping conditions. And we are not presented with regulations applying to any service--or even any transportation--industry but to a unique industry that carries its clients tens of thousands of feet above the earth at hundreds of miles per hour. Safety and air transportation requirements go to the very essence of commercial aviation and must be applied not only to handicapped persons but to all passengers. 195 In its efforts to do so without discrimination, the Board sought to define qualified handicapped person in a manner that removes the subjective aspects of the standard to the maximum extent possible consistent with our need to defer in the first instance to the reasonable judgment of carrier personnel on safety questions. 196 In that regard, it has succeeded. We surely cannot say that the agency's decision ... manifests a clear error in judgment, 197 or that the definition challenged here in any way lacked a rational basis. 198 Accordingly, petitioners' challenge to the definition is denied. If arbitrary or unreasonable decisions do occur under that definition or the regulations to which it applies, the remedy lies in enforcement proceedings or other corrective action under Subpart C of the Rule. 199 2. The Forty-Eight Hour Notice Requirement 102 Section 382.15(c) of the CAB's final regulations permits airlines to require all handicapped passengers who will need extensive special assistance to notify the airline forty-eight hours in advance of their flight. 200 Extensive special assistance was defined in the Final Rule as including: 103 (1) Medical oxygen for on-board use; 104 (2) Boarding and deplaning assistance using mechanical boarding lifts, aisle chairs, other special equipment, or requiring the presence of more than the usual complement of personnel; and 105 (3) Ground wheelchairs at facilities where they are not usually available. 201 106 In response to further comment from groups representing the handicapped, the Board amended its Final Rule to prohibit carriers from refusing assistance on the ground of inadequate notice if the service or equipment is available with the lesser notice given. 202 Petitioners nevertheless challenge the forty-eight hour notice requirement as arbitrary, overbroad, discriminatory and inconsistent with the mandate of section 504. 203 107 We disagree. Here again, a balance must be struck between furthering the nondiscriminatory purposes of section 504 and allowing for the practicalities of providing special assistance. As we have noted, the Supreme Court (in the context of education) and this court (in the context of urban mass transportation) have held that extensive, extremely expensive modifications of existing programs may impose such substantial affirmative burdens that they cannot be required under section 504. 204 The record reveals that with respect to its advance notice rule, as elsewhere, the Board conscientiously and rationally sought to implement section 504 in a manner likely to be reasonable and effective. 205 As a reviewing court, we can require no more. 206 108 Nevertheless, it is clear that when the CAB fashioned this rule, the Board was assuming its application primarily to small air carriers--those least likely to be able to provide special assistance without suffering a substantial financial burden. 207 It conceded that some carriers now provide such services on 24 hours' notice, but argued that many, especially smaller carriers, may not be able to do so. 208 Respondents expand upon this point by noting the 109 undue burdens for small airlines operating at small airports or airfields where facilities and equipment are extremely limited. For example, if an airline operates between a number of small facilities that do not receive Federal financial assistance and do not provide ground wheelchairs, it should not be required to maintain a wheelchair at each airport. 209 110 If such reasoning formed the basis of the forty-eight hour notice requirement below, that requirement will, of course, need to be reconsidered on remand. Under our holding today, such small carriers will be a minority of the carriers subject to the regulations implementing section 504. Should the rule be redrafted in accordance, for example, with the comments regarding notice requirements made by both the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board 210 and the Department of Transportation, 211 an exemption may need to be provided for the small carriers. 3. The Rule on Remand 111 The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 provided for the sunset of the Civil Aeronautics Board and the transfer to other agencies, effective January 1, 1985, of those CAB functions that are to continue. 212 As specified further by the Civil Aeronautics Board Sunset Act of 1984, the vast majority of functions performed by the Board before it ceased to exist have been transferred to the Department of Transportation. 213 Among these transferred functions--and substantial enough in the consideration of Congress to have been one of sixteen prominently captioned sections--was the furtherance of the accessibility of commercial airports or commercial air transportation to handicapped persons. 214 On account of our holding today, vacating the CAB's restrictive reading of its rule-making authority and ordering any regulations promulgated under section 504 to be applied to essentially all air carriers, the DOT will have an opportunity, on remand, to fashion a Nondiscrimination Rule that is consistent with its current regulation of airports, its own understanding of the CAB's regulatory authority over air carriers as expressed throughout these proceedings, and the intent of Congress. 215 112 On remand we expect the DOT to act with expedition. We have affirmed the specific provisions of the CAB's regulations challenged by petitioners. The Department may, as we have indicated, wish to take another look at certain aspects of the Final Rule that appear to have been drafted with small carriers in mind. It may wish then to specify certain exemptions for such carriers if changes are made to reflect the wider applicability of the rules to this nation's major commercial airlines. Certainly the Department will need to make some non-substantive deletions of language, and it may wish otherwise to economize editorially. By now, however, a dozen years have passed since Congress enacted section 504. 216 It is time that a handicapped person's right of reasonable access to nondiscriminatory commercial air transportation had the force of law.