Wheelchair Travel Newsletter: Eclipse in the Heartland, New Air Travel Rules + Accessible Travel Chat

Your vote will decide where I travel, plus the most important Accessible Travel Chat of the year is next week.

Happy Friday!

I have spent the morning battling both an internet and elevator outage, which together are terribly inconvenient when you’re trying to send an email newsletter!

My false imprisonment aside, which I expect to be temporary, I want to alert you to a very exciting event that will occur on April 8, 2024. On that day, a Total Solar Eclipse will present along a path of totality that will cross from Mexico into the United States and a tiny portion of Canada. For those of us in the USA, the path touches portions of the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

About a year ago, as news outlets began writing about the upcoming eclipse, I watched a TED talk that convinced me to prioritize attending. You can watch that talk here, given by “umbraphile” David Baron:

Despite making that commitment to myself a year ago, I haven’t actually planned the trip and now need to put it together at the last minute! Help me by providing your input — from which city should I see the Total Solar Eclipse?

The poll will be open for 24 hours, and I look forward to finding out where you are sending me! If you live in the path of totality or plan to travel for the solar eclipse, please leave a comment and let me know where you’ll be watching from!

Important news about accessible air travel and a call to action

A few weeks ago, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that will impact accessibility in air travel. There are 9 major areas of proposed regulation and, now that the public comment period has opened, I thought it wise to put together a primer on the topic.

Read about the NPRM on Air Travelers with Wheelchairs, what it covers, and what it doesn’t cover here.

This is probably the last major action that Secretary Pete will take to improve accessibility in air travel, which means this could be our last opportunity to influence the public policy that instructs airlines for some time.

Your public comments in this process will be very important and, to give this advocacy the critical attention it deserves, I will be hosting an Accessible Travel Chat to discuss the topic.

Please join me on Thursday, March 28 at 8:00 p.m. ET (New York time) to discuss the DOT’s proposed rules and how you can make a difference in this process. If you’ve not been active before, now is your chance to get engaged — to tell the government what needs to change in air travel.

Click here to register for the Accessible Travel Chat: New Air Travel Rules with John Morris

The airline industry has already sent their lobbyists to Washington and are submitting comments encouraging regulatory restraint. They’ll say, “everything is fine” and “there is no accessibility crisis here” — but we know that’s not true, and our voices must be heard also.

Please be sure to register and join the chat to discuss all of this and more.

In Case You Missed It

I was recently joined by the team from the New England ADA Center, who shared how they can advise everyday people like you and me about our rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act — including via a free and confidential hotline!

If you’d like to watch the recording, you can find it at the following link: Watch the Accessible Travel Chat with the New England ADA Center.

Looking ahead

Over the next week, 5 new articles will appear on WheelchairTravel.org, including my look at artificial intelligence and its role in the world of accessible travel. I’m excited to share the stories that have been brewing!

Here is a quick look at some of my upcoming travel:

• Next week, I will be back in Florida to celebrate my sister’s birthday — the warm weather of the south will be an added bonus!

• After seeing the solar eclipse and in just a few weeks, I will be traveling to London, England for an international event about the laws impacting accessible air travel. I booked a one-way ticket to London and have not decided how (or when) I’ll get home. If I were to spend an extra week in Europe, where should I go?

• In May, I’ll be jumping between Boston, Washington, D.C., Fort Wayne, Indiana, St. Louis, Missouri, and Hamburg, Germany — it’s going to be a busy month!

Thank you, as always, for your readership and support of this newsletter.

Have a great weekend!

—John