18.02.09

Natalia Prissetskaya, a Manager at “Perspektiva,” has been vindicated in her campaign, together with Perspektiva lawyers, for compensation from Siberia Airlines (S7), which had refused unlawfully to let her board a flight. S7 is the No. 2 airline in Russia and a giant in the industry. As Natalia said after her 3 ½- month legal struggle against S-7, “We managed to draw attention to just one of the many disability rights violations that disabled Russians face in their daily lives. It is a precedent which will help people with disabilities to defend their rights before transportation agencies.”

The saga began on June 30, 2008, when Natalia, who uses a wheelchair, was starting off on a business trip from Moscow to Vladikavkaz. Natalia had never encountered any difficulties in getting onto flights in Russia, which she has crisscrossed in her work as a project manager and trainer for Perspektiva. That day, too, everything was going smoothly. She registered for the flight at Domodedovo airport, checked her bags, went through security, and was transported to the tarmac, where airport employees were preparing to help lift her and her wheelchair onto the waiting plane. Then the unexpected happened: A flight attendant refused to let Natalia on board, citing “internal” company regulations. The flight attendant refused even to talk to Natalia, who had to resort to traveling to a different airport and using a different airline.

Perspektiva turned to Rospotrebnadzor and Rotransnadzor (Russia’s consumer and transport regulatory agencies, respectively), demanding that S7 be held accountable for violating Russian law. Separately, Natalia filed a civil lawsuit demanding 1 million rubles (approx 30,000 USD) in compensation for moral damages. Lawyers from Perspektiva and the International Confederation of Consumer Rights Associations provided legal support for the landmark case and Perspektiva’s PR manager organized media coverage of the event.

After a wave of media coverage of the incident, Rosaviatsia, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, conducted its own investigation. It directed both S7 and Domodedovo Airport “to correct the documents governing the provision of service to passengers with disabilities, to make those documents compliant with the Air Transportation Regulations, and to clarify both the liabilities and the duties of airlines and airport services when providing service to such passengers.” In other words, it called for both legal compliance and transparency, neither of which S7 had provided when refusing service to Natalia Prissetskaya.

But the government response did not end there. Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the upper chamber of parliament, the Federation Council, asked the Prosecutor General to check the Federal Aviation Rules (FAR) for compliance with federal law. The Prosecutor General’s investigation confirmed that the internal regulations used by the aircraft crew did, in fact, contradict the Air Codex, Consumer Protection Law, and the law “On Social Protection of People with Disabilities in the Russian Federation,” as well as the FAR. S7 was ordered to correct the discrepancies and punish those responsible.

Perspektiva lawyer Maxim Larionov explained that the wording in some parts of the Federal Aviation Rules is imprecise—including, for example, a section saying airlines can refuse to transport people in wheelchairs if certain aircraft models lack the necessary equipment—which can allow airlines to develop wrongheaded policies. “Our main goal is to change the attitudes of all airlines towards people with disabilities, and this requires some serious changes in the FAR,” Larionov said. Today, Perspektiva is working with members of the Duma to develop legislation and new Air Codex regulations to improve current regulations with regard to passengers with disabilities.

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