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Severely disabled don’t have to pay extra airfare

Thursday, January 10, 2008 | 05:00 PM ET

The Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled that people with severe disabilities who require extra seats or medical attendants to travel with them by air should only have to pay a single fare.

The agency ruled that the country’s major air carriers must offer a single fare to those with disabilities, including the severely obese, who require two seats to accommodate them.

Also under the “one-person, one-fare” policy, they don’t have to pay extra for medical attendants that must be seated with them on flights.

“The airlines failed to demonstrate to the agency that implementation of a one-person-one-fare policy will impose undue hardship on them,” the agency wrote in its news release.

The agency estimates the new policy will cost Air Canada about $7 million a year and WestJet about $1.5 million a year. That’s a fraction of the cost estimated by airlines in their submissions to the agency.

The transportation agency said the current practice effectively limits travel opportunities for the disabled.

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