Air Canada pays for discriminating against Deaf Blind Passenger

Dear Friends,

Here is another news where the courts have come forward with a befitting penalty to air carriers "Air Canada" who were found to have discriminated against a passenger with deaf-blindness.

Hope you would welcome the news and we hope that such benchmarks will work as deterrence for any future incident. Here is the news which has been sourced from www.canada.com

Subhash Chandra Vashishth
09811125521

Air Canada ordered to pay deaf–blind man for discrimination

27 Jan: The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ordered Air Canada to pay $10,000 to Eddie Morten –a Vancouver man who is deaf and with limited vision in just one eye –– on the basis the company discriminated against him by demanding he fly with an attendant. "We have concluded that Mr. Morten has established a prima facie case of discrimination against Air Canada. Air Canada has not met its obligation to accommodate him to the point of undue hardship," the tribunal ruled in a decision released Monday.

In August of 2004, Morten called a travel agent to book a flight from Vancouver to San Francisco and informed the travel agent of his condition. An Air Canada reservations clerk, hearing that Morten was deaf–blind, said he could not travel alone and would need someone to accompany him. Air Canada offered the attendant a reduced fare. The airline allows deaf people and blind people to travel unaccompanied because they are considered self–reliant and able to act on their own in an emergency.

Source: www.canada.com