Delta Promoted Accessibility on Social Media—Here’s What Happened Next

Delta Airlines released a promotional video on social media showing how it “makes the world smaller” for everyone, including children with disabilities. The disability community, however, swiftly called out how Delta and other airlines often make travel harder for people with disabilities, especially wheelchair users, an issue Delta said it is working to resolve. The response from the disability community was 180-degrees from what the company expected. They jumped in the comments section on the video and told their stories—of seeing their wheelchair treated like a sack of potatoes, traveling with a repair kit and being asked to crawl up a flight of stairs to the plane and other difficulties with airline staff. Read the full story here on Yahoo, here.

OUR TAKE: No good deed goes unpunished, even by the disability community.  It’s certainly understandable why disabled travelers who’ve experienced first hand a ruined vacation due to wheelchair damage would jump at the chance to vent at Delta, but it doesn’t seem to be productive in the long run.  Delta’s ad shows that they are trying to find accessible solutions that involve both design and awareness training among their hundreds of airport sub-contractors to improve conditions.  Having to endure this torrent of excoriation may have an unintended effect: Brand risk. If the airlines do nothing, they risk nothing. It is with mixed emotion that we write this. It’s unclear whether marketing folks at Delta ran the ad by a focus group of disabled airplane travelers. If they had, they might have been able to hear their stories and work a note about their long-term approach to change into the messaging.  To learn about some of the positive internal changes Delta has made in hiring and supporting people with disabilities, click here.  “When we had our CEO transition, we really birthed an increased focus on diversity and inclusion,” said Keyra Johnson, Delta’s chief officer of diversity and inclusion (on their site). “We don’t think diversity just happens. We actually believe that you have to work for it and go after it.”