Travel Agent

Here’s the news:

“A passenger of budget airline Cebu Pacific who has a special child is bent on filing civil and criminal charges against the country’s biggest budget airline and its crew for allegedly discriminating against the special child. Marites Alcantara said the airline crew asked them to deplane since the child was considered to be mentally ill.”

From ABS-CBN News

According to one report, “the crew responded that it was company policy that no two special children/persons may board the same flight, and insisted that she disembark together with her son.” Although there were others saying that the crew responded according to an international aviation law relating to boarding of two mentally ill persons on the same flight.

Let’s check what the Travel Regulations page of Cebu Pacific Air’s website states about carrying of “mentally ill” persons:

For safety reasons, Cebu Pacific Air will carry a maximum of two passengers per flight. Such passengers should advise the airline of their special needs and request special assistance upon flight booking so that the airline can make the necessary arrangement or inform the passengers in advance if it is unable to provide the special requirements.

The airline may refuse carriage of passengers with special needs upon check-in if the airline was not given prior advice of their requirements and the airline is unable to provide the same.

The passengers must to the airline duly accomplished Special Handling Forms before the scheduled flight

In my understanding, “a maximum of two” means they will ALLOW up to TWO persons but NOT THREE or more.

If we will digest this news, we would see that the crew (and the rest of the flight entourage) committed two mistakes: (1) the number of allowed “mentally ill” passengers and (2) the definition of “mentally ill” person.

(1) According to Cebu Pacific’s travel regulation, they WILL ALLOW UP TO TWO “MENTALLY ILL” persons in the same flight. It means, counting that their two “special children” passengers were really “mentally ill,” they should still allow both on them on board since their maximum allowed is TWO and NOT ONE. If there will be another “mentally ill” person (making the count to a total of THREE) then one of them should really leave the place.

(2) This is what an entry from DBTAC Southwest ADA Center says about prevention of discrimination against mentally impaired passengers:

49 U.S.C. § 41705 – Discrimination against handicapped individuals

(a) In General.

In providing air transportation, an air carrier may not discriminate against an otherwise qualified individual on the following grounds:

(1) the individual has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.
(2) the individual has a record of such an impairment.
(3) the individual is regarded as having such an impairment.

*The Center is one of the DBTAC National Network of Centers funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the Department of Education.

In no longer have enough energy to elaborate. Do your own math!