American Airlines Accessibility Plan

To request a copy of American Airlines’ Accessibility Plan or Feedback Process Document in an alternate format, or to provide feedback on accessibility at American Airlines, please contact our Customer Relations Department through any of these channels:

Channel	Contact information	Description
Phone	682-278-9000	To request a copy of, or to provide feedback on, the accessibility plan
Phone	800-892-3624 682-286-5070 (International) 800-735-2988 (Hearing or speech-impaired assistance)	To provide feedback on accessibility on American Airlines, or a concern regarding disability assistance
Web form	Contact American	–
Email address	accessibility.feedback@aa.com	–
Mail address	American Airlines Customer Relations 4000 E. Sky Harbor Blvd. Phoenix, AZ 85034	–

A dedicated Accessibility Plan Outreach Coordinator has been designated to receive this feedback.

American Airlines developed our Accessibility Plan based on feedback from customers with disabilities, from internal consultations with our employees, and from external consultations with accessibility advocacy groups. We have benefited from these distinct perspectives and sources of expertise, as they have helped us identify different types of barriers and prioritize our actions. This means we can efficiently tackle barriers while strategically working towards innovative and universal accessibility throughout all of our services.

American has been working with the Open Doors Organization for many years. Open Doors is a non-profit with the purpose of creating a society in which all persons with disabilities have the same consumer opportunities as everyone else. In September 2022, the organization served as an advisor and collaborator for the development of our frontline accessibility training sessions. In April 2023, we consulted with Open Doors on ways to better coordinate improvements and hear from stakeholders. . During this meeting, we discussed best practices on the structure and membership of the Council. We plan to continue working with Open Doors and have scheduled consultations to specifically discuss employee training and our external advisory Council.

We have also been working closely with Level Access since June 2022. Level Access specializes in digital accessibility solutions. With the help of their expertise, American has adopted best practices regarding digital accessibility and continues to make great strides in establishing accessibility across our digital modalities. We will continue working with Level Access with the goal of establishing ourselves as leaders in the digital accessibility space.

American is subject to regulations under subsection 170 (1) of the Canada Transportation Act. This includes the Accessible Transportation for Person with Disabilities Regulations (ATPDR), and the Air Transportation Regulations, Part VII. This Accessibility Plan outlines several of American’s actions to comply with or exceed accessibility requirements. However, the Accessibility Plan is not all-encompassing, and we may be engaged in activities beyond those highlighted here.

American already has a well-established system of providing mobility assistance to customers with disabilities at their request. This includes assistance with moving from the curb of the airport to the gate of the departing flight, moving between gates, and moving from their arriving flight to the curb for pick up. However, American recognizes that there is always room for improvement in providing these services and is working to do so by deploying technology and streamlining certain operations to reduce mobility-related barriers in the built environment.

Some identified barriers include:

• Lack of jetbridges. Certain airports outside of Canada do not have jetbridges and aircraft must be boarded and disembarked directly onto the tarmac. This can make it difficult for customers that use wheelchairs and other mobility devices to board and disembark.
• Increased risk of damage to mobility devices due to airport layout and infrastructure. In some airports, the elevators that descend to the tarmac are located far from American’s boarding gates. This layout requires Team Members to travel farther to reach the tarmac with wheelchairs and other mobility devices that must be loaded onto the aircraft after the customer has boarded the plane. A similar impediment arises upon arrival when retrieving and returning wheelchairs and other mobility devices to customers. This increased handling also increases the risk of device damage.

• Installing wheelchair lifts at airports across our system, particularly where lifts are needed due to airport infrastructure. Wheelchair lifts assist Team Members in moving the chairs in and out of airplane stowage, which decreases the possibility of damage to the devices and of injury to Team Members.
• Installing accessible kiosks. American set an internal goal to install a greater percentage of accessible kiosks at our proprietary locations. In Canada, airport kiosks are installed under the shared use model, so American lacks control over the number of accessible kiosks it has access to. However, by exceeding expectations for our proprietary kiosks across the world, American is striving to be an international example for kiosk accessibility in the aviation industry, which we hope will encourage others to do the same. We are currently working to complete our accessible kiosk installation.
• Tracking metrics. Proactively tracking airport station metrics to determine how stations are succeeding in meeting accessibility needs, particularly when it comes to the handling of mobility devices.
• Aircraft accessibility. Supporting the continued study and development of safe and feasible aircraft accessibility features that broaden air travel opportunities for passengers with disabilities. American has been at the forefront of pushing for accessible design of an aircraft’s built environment.

In the next two years, American will continue deploying wheelchair lifts to airports where they are needed, installing accessible kiosks, and tracking station metrics related to the handling of accessibility devices. Customer feedback, along with the data we are collecting, will allow us to make assessments about how to most effectively and efficiently improve accessibility for our customers. We will be able to measure the improvements of stations that have received new technology and additional employee training and focus on making changes to remove barriers at stations with lower metrics.

• Improved site structure. We are working to edit every page on our sites to include appropriate headings, lists, paragraphs, and other formatting for better usability with assistive technology.
• Added text equivalents. We are adding alternative text, captions, and transcripts to images and videos so users who cannot see or hear have a text equivalent to interact with.
• Built for full keyboard access. We are developing new pages with keyboard accessibility in mind so that users can easily tab through a page to find the content they need.
• Create site consistency. We have created templates for our site to ensure consistency. Once customers are familiar with how our pages and menus work, they can expect similar functionality across the site, each time they visit.
• Mobile accessibility. We are working to make our mobile application accessible to all customers, including those who use assistive technology, by incorporating best practices of WCAG 2.1.

Our digital team has made significant strides in making American’s information accessible, but we are also acutely aware that digital accessibility is an ongoing process. One of our priorities towards achieving universal accessibility of our communication technologies is the accessibility of our mobile application. In the next two years, we will continue working with services like Level Access, conduct external testing of our digital communications, and use customer feedback to identify and remove barriers in American’s information and communication technologies.

• Building on efforts initiated several years ago, in 2022, we developed and implemented multiple trainings for our customer care and operations staff on best practices for communicating and engaging with customers with disabilities.
• We are working on improving our processes for capturing customer needs and transmitting that information to our frontline staff, particularly through automation. Our goal is to be able to automatically transmit the data received by the Special Assistance Coordinators to the employees who will be assisting those customers.
• In 2022, American launched its Disability Team, which responds to customer disability requests during and after travel. The Disability Team is accessible through American’s website or by phone, including for hearing or speech-impaired customers.

American will continue to perform an analysis of its accessible communications and update its employee trainings on communicating and engaging with customers with disabilities. Our goal is to increase the amount of training received by American Airlines employees on the topic of accessible communication.

• Incorporating various types of accessibility enhancements to our aircraft cabin when developing new components and configurations. Representatives from interested organizations are brought in to experience our seats and other cabin elements to validate access (entry, egress, layout, and reach) and to aid in development and training of the transfer processes of people with reduced mobility.
• Reviewing our internal processes for obtaining goods, services, and facilities.

American is leveraging our Accessibility Council and Customer Accessibility Team to work with our procurement teams to ensure American’s procurement practices are accessible. In the next two years, we will use ongoing consultations and feedback to identify any additional procurement practices necessary to improve our purchase of goods and services.

Employee Trainings

We are conducting employee accessibility trainings to improve our delivery of accessibility services. The trainings are tailored to the services provided by our customer care and operations teams.

Goals of Accessibility Training for Customer Care

Part One:

• Recognize how to respectfully interact with customers who have a disability
• Label the different types of accessibility-related Special Service Requests (SSRs)
• Distinguish the difference between device tags and know how to complete each one

Part Two:

• Identify how to properly assist a customer with a cognitive disability
• Determine if a service animal’s behavior is acceptable for travel
• Demonstrate how to verify service animal documents
• Recall the responsibilities involved with processing a mobility device at the gate
• Determine proper mobility device battery handling based on battery type
• Recognize how to communicate and hand off a mobility device to fleet service
• Identify where the priority stowage area is on board an aircraft
• Define the responsibilities associated with helping a customer board an aircraft

Goals of Accessibility Training for Customer Operations

Part One:

• Identify commonly used mobility devices, their components, and respective battery types
• Effectively communicate with Customer Care when accepting mobility devices for transfer
• Transfer mobility devices planeside for cargo compartment loading

Part Two:

• Complete pre-loading requirements
• Implement loading and offloading techniques to prevent damage and ensure safety
• Determine offloading delivery requirements to ensure the proper return of a customer’s device

Accessible Services

American is working on the following services to create a more accessible travel experience:

• Redesigning the wheelchair / scooter tag to improve useability for frontline employees
• Streamlining the process of scanning and loading wheelchairs
• Conducting in-person mobility device training for our teams
• Automating customer data to be available for frontline team members

American recognizes that employee trainings must continue to evolve with our understanding of disabilities and identification of barriers to our services. Through ongoing consultation with our employees, customers with disabilities, advocacy groups, and partners, American will continue to develop our employee training and the design of our services to improve accessibility.

In the next two years, American plans to have a robust data automation system to ensure our frontline employees are equipped with the information provided to us by our customers with disabilities. This way, our employees will be better prepared and equipped to service the unique needs of each of our customers.

Consulting with our employees and customers with disabilities to identify barriers in the use of transportation services to and from American terminals.

Through feedback from our employees and customers with disabilities, American will analyze our transportation services provided in airports. We will use this analysis to work with our vendors to support greater accessibility for our customers.