Supreme Court to examine plea that systemic blind spots in aviation boom left disabled travellers stranded

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 7, 2026) decided to ask the Union government why millions of passengers with disabilities continue to face humiliation, barriers, broken equipment, and digital exclusion in one of the world’s fastest growing aviation markets.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant issued formal notice to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the Airports Authority of India, the Central Industrial Security Force, and the Digi Yatra Foundation on a petition filed by Turab Chimthanawala, a company secretary and advocate based in Mumbai, who suffers a benchmark disability called Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis.

Advocate Ashutosh Senger, for Mr. Chimthanawala, submitted that India was presently the third-largest aviation market globally, with annual passenger traffic exceeding 350 million passengers. Yet, persons with disabilities (PwD) face denial of accessible aviation infrastructure and services, restricting their fundamental right to travel independently and with dignity.

“Domestic passenger traffic has consistently grown at approximately 10-12% annually over the past decade. Even based on the conservative estimate of 2.21% disability prevalence recorded in the Census of 2011, this translates to over seven million air passengers with disabilities annually...The magnitude of affected persons underscores the systemic and national scale of the accessibility failure,” Mr. Senger submitted.

The petition referred to recent media reports of a wheelchair-dependent passenger who was allegedly offloaded in Delhi while connecting from a Frankfurt flight.

The plea highlighted a systemic and nationwide failure of non-implementation of accessibility across all stages of air travel, including booking, web-check-in, airport entry and navigation, counter check-in, security screening, Digi Yatra processing, immigration, boarding, in-flight services, and arrival assistance.

These include instances of visually handicapped passengers routinely forced into wheelchairs or being frequently compelled to use specialised ambulifts even when they can safely use regular staircases. Crucial personal assistive equipment, including specialised battery-operated wheelchairs, are found regularly damaged, misplaced, or outright denied loading into aircraft holds by ground handling staff. In-flight systems fail to incorporate accessibility settings, leaving visually handicapped passengers unable to call cabin crew or access basic safety information on foreign scheduled air transport services.

Silent airports fail to provide accessible alternative modes of communication for PwD, including real-time audio notifications, visual alerts, or WhatsApp updates, the petition said.

Besides, airline mobile applications and booking websites systematically fail to support screen readers, lack compatible payment gateways for assistive technology, and omit mandatory options to disclose disability-related assistance requirements during check-in.

Further, airlines do not provide dedicated, clearly identifiable feedback or grievance mechanisms for reporting accessibility barriers, forcing disabled travelers into generic customer support queues where specific accessibility issues go unaddressed.

“Accessibility is not merely a statutory entitlement but a fundamental right flowing from the guarantee of equality, dignity, and freedom of movement, and imposes a non-derogable obligation upon the state and its instrumentalities to ensure that public infrastructure and services are usable by PwDs on an equal basis with others,” the petition said.