Accessibility Issues Across Europe

Andrew Lamb, EGDF Board Member, chaired the panel on Accessibility.

David Adams spoke about the problems traveling by air with a guide dog since the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) removed the definition of a recognised assistance dog from its regulations, which had said that an assistance dog had to be trained by a school recognised by IGDF or ADI. The regulations continued to refer to a “recognised assistance dog” without defining it. The definition had been criticised because it excluded
• self-trained dogs,
• dogs from small schools below the threshold for accreditation by IGDF or ADI,
• schools that could not afford accreditation fees, and
• dogs in Austria that were certified by a government-approved programme. Austrian representatives had lobbied successfully to remove the definition. The European standard for assistance dogs should resolve this problem when concluded in several years. Meanwhile, chaos reigned as some airlines used the deleted definition and others had devised their own.



Andrew Lamb spoke of his experience flying with his guide dog. In the past three weeks he had travelled with four different airlines. He had found Ryanair the simplest; when booking online one merely mentioned they were travelling with a guide dog. With British Airways, after booking online, one had to spend a long time on the phone arranging for the guide dog.

Andrew had been working on an IT system for booking well-trained assistance dogs using an online central data base with a code for each registered dog which airlines could interrogate to provide a consistent mechanism for people travelling with a guide dog. He said the idea was straightforward but subject to concerns about data privacy.

Marianne Tenhami expressed concern that everyone would start travelling with their pet dogs.

Sabine Stroem thought a fully automated process would be too expensive and complicated. She suggested approaching the three main airline booking providers rather than the individual airlines.

Gavin Neate said that the Horizon organisation in France and PRM Assist in Ireland had been working in this area.

The National Federation of the Blind UK had provided a video showing access problems such as bicycles left on a street and cycle lanes between a bus shelter and the bus stop. It highlighted their campaigns on dockless bikes and e-scooters.

Sangeeta Uppaladinni, a self-employed UK guide dog user who runs a communications agency, presented her personal case studies of reasonable adjustment. With the help of RNIB, her college and organisations such as the Lions Club, she had overcome problems with job application forms, online classes, written exams and travelling to her graduation. She was eventually awarded her diploma and had been a disability consultant to the college for the past 11 years.

Jane Richards spoke about professional awareness training for service providers. Many of the problems about access to shops, venues and taxis for people with guide dogs were due to a lack of training of the service providers. Historically, some guide dog schools had trained service providers. She speculated that training of service providers would be more effective if done by a commercial company that already trained staff in other subjects? The EGDF Secretariat were in conversation with a commercial training company to explore the feasibility of developing a course on guide dog awareness that they could market to companies like Tesco and Uber and would report progress in due course.