“POOR TREATMENT NO LONGER TOLERATED”

For Generations the aviation industry have treated people with disabilities like “second class citizens”, but this is about to change with the release of an aviation white paper.

The federal government made a series of accessibility pledges in the Aviation White Paper that was released this week.

People with all kinds of disability have long faced barriers to air travel and complained of discrimination.

I have written a number of blogs over the years about the poor treatment of people with disabilities at the hands of aviation authorities. These blogs have included people being stranded in planes, having to crawl to their sit-or off the plane, being dropped by airport staff, struggling to walk through airports, a sister having to carry their sister through an airport, damaged wheelchairs and in one instance a person died due to negligence of an airline.

Like so many people with disability, Emma Bennison has encountered so many problems flying over the years, she's lost count of how many times she's been poorly treated.

"Every time I go to an airport, I'm anxious," said Ms Bennison, who is blind and a cane user.

Formerly CEO of Blind Citizens Australia and now chief innovation officer for Life Without Barriers, Ms Bennison has regularly travelled by air for work.

While she can't remember every single incident, a couple of distressing events spring to mind.

There was the time she was forgotten by assistance staff she'd pre-booked and was left in an airport lounge for so long she missed her flight.

Or the time she was taken to an "accessible" seating area and left there for an hour and a half.

I didn't know where I was. I stood up a couple of times and called out, but nobody seemed to notice," she said.

"Eventually I called my travel agent, and they called the airport, and the airport called the airline."

Then there are the smaller things she encounters repeatedly — everything from inaccessible websites and self-check-in kiosks to prejudice from airline and airport staff.

"If I'm with somebody else … they'll just ignore me, and they'll say, 'can she take her shoes off?', or 'can she stand over here and put her arms out?'

"It's particularly galling when I'm leading a team of people, and I'm often travelling with them, and they have to watch that."

Ms. Bennison said while staff often had good intentions and were doing their best, frustrating and belittling incidents were far too common.

"It makes me angry and disappointed ... and I feel like a second-class citizen. I've often said I just feel like a piece of luggage," Ms Bennison said.

"There are so many possible points of failure and … there is no empowering solution that enables me to get assistance if I need it."

The federal government pledged in its long-awaited Aviation White Paper this week to create an industry ombudsman and charter of rights.

As part of a suite of accessibility reforms, it also vowed to create aviation-specific disability standards — similar to those that exist for public transport — co-designed with people with disability and industry stakeholders.

Airport and airline lobby groups have both acknowledged the issues people with disability face during air travel, and welcomed the opportunity to work with each other, the disability community and governments on next steps.

The Australian Airports Association said airports were, "well advanced in implementing measures to make travel more inclusive".

"Members … have also adopted the hidden disability program , with the development of guidance materials to recognise the importance of inclusivity at airports and promoting industry best practice."

Current and former disability discrimination commissioners have hailed the White Paper as a first step towards reforming an industry they said has discriminated against people with disability "for generations".

However, they said it was critical the pledges were acted on and new rules enforced — otherwise there was no point in creating them.

Incumbent commissioner Rosemary Kayess said the sector needed a stronger regulatory framework forcing it to be proactive, rather than reactive, to make sure discrimination didn't happen in the first place.

Ms Kayess said she'd personally experienced a gamut of frustrating incidents, from seeing her expensive power wheelchair end up in a different country after being put on the wrong flight, to breaking her arm after an on-board transfer between seats went wrong.

Graeme Innes served as commissioner between 2005 and 2014, and in January settled a long-running discrimination dispute with Adelaide Airport .

Mr Innes, who is blind, said he experienced issues "every time" he travelled, and some people with disability "just don't fly anymore because it's too hard".

"The message I receive is, 'we don't want you to travel, so we're going to make it as hard as possible', 'we don't care about you', or 'we care about you less than we do passengers without disabilities'."

Ms Bennison said it shouldn't be up to people with disability to hold the system to account when it failed to include them.

"If all of those commitments in the White Paper were to come to fruition, that would significantly improve my day-to-day life and [those of] many friends and colleagues," Ms Bennison said.