EU court: Airlines must adapt planes for blind pilots

The EU’s General Court today ruled that airlines should follow anti-discrimination laws and have to adapt planes so that blind pilots will be able to fly them.

The court ruling comes after many blind pilots felt discriminated by airlines only hiring pilots with good sight. “A blind pilot makes the same decisions as a pilot with vision” says Kant Sea, spokesman for the group of pilots who started the case.

Aircraft will need to have the following systems installed to comply with the EU law:

• Braille script for all buttons and labels
• Altitude, course and speed callouts every 5 seconds.
• Removal of protective glass of analogue meters for tactile accessibility
• Manual, navigation charts and passenger lists should also be in braille.

Airbus says it’s ready to make these changes for the airlines since they are already planning to install Siri in their new aircraft. Kant Sea is very excited and says he’s “looking forward to it”.