The UK’s top airlines are missing out on millions of
pounds of revenue and risking legal action by failing to meet
minimum accessibility standards on their websites, a survey has
claimed.
According to computing and disability charity AbilityNet, which
carried out the survey, not one of the nine airline websites
checked for accessibility using both manual and automated tools
satisfied the criteria required to facilitate access for users with
visual impairment, dyslexia or those unable to use a mouse.
The selected airlines - EasyJet, British Airways, Ryanair, Bmi,
British European, Monarch, Virgin Atlantic and Mytravelite - are
preventing up to 15% of the population from enjoying the benefits
of booking their flights online and the associated advantages that
this offers in terms of price and availability, AbilityNet
said.
With a potential market of 1.6 million registered blind users,
as well as a further 3.4 million with disabilities preventing them
from using the standard keyboard, screen and mouse set-up with
ease, the airlines are missing out on their share of an overall
£50bn to £60bn per year buying power, the charity said.
Companies failing to address accessibility issues are also
placing themselves at risk of legal action, said Shuna Kennedy,
chief executive officer at AbilityNet.
"From October 2004, when extensions to the Disability
Discrimination Act come into force, websites will have to be
accessible as a matter of law," she said.
EasyJet’s website came out as the most accessible of the sites
tested, but, in company with BA and Monarch Airlines, it could only
manage a two-star rating on a five-star scale.
The remaining six were given a single star rating and dubbed
"very inaccessible" by AbilityNet, with the Virgin Atlantic website
deemed to have "the most serious issues of accessibility of all
those tested".
AbilityNet's report said that much of the Virgin site’s content
and critical functionality is embedded in interactive
presentations, so that visitors to the site who cannot use a mouse,
are vision impaired, or use speech output or voice recognition
software, would be unable to use the site at all.
Virgin Atlantic admitted it had problems on its site but said it
was working to improve accessibility.