The airlines are damned if they do and damned if they don't

A marvellously redundant EU regulation/UK law is about to come into force it seems. According to a Department fo Transport press release "from 26 July 2007 it will be illegal for an airline, travel agent or tour operator to refuse a booking on the grounds of disability or to refuse to embark a disabled person who has a valid ticket and reservation."

Apparently the "new rules will mean that anyone who has been refused boarding on the grounds of disability or reduced mobility will be able to complain to the Disability Rights Commission" and airlines face the potential of an unlimted fine. This sounds all lovely and fluffy and anti-discrimination, but it's not exactly practical and is entirely contradictory to other rules and regulations?

For a start there are a certain number of internal safety regulations on planes. You know the sort of thing, like you cannot let a person in a wheelchair sit next to the emergency exit, and you cannot let stupidly obese people sit next to window exits. So what if the plane is full up and you simply cannot let the disabled person on precuisely because they are disabled? I;m thknking over-subscribes Easyjet flights here.

Also, what about if there simply isn't enough space for the wheelchairs? What are we going to do next, change the legal requirements for legroom space thereby reducing capacity of planes, thereby increasing the need for more flights and going against so called carbon targets?

There are many perfectly practical and safety reasons why, in some circumsatnces an airline would refuse a disabled person to embark. These reasons are already codifed in legislation and regulations. Now we have a new legal requirement that means the airline may have break one in order to adhere to the other, and in both cases face massive fines.