JETSTAR may well be pondering how many extra wheelchairs it could
have provided for disabled passengers, as it weighs the dollar cost of
what constitutes ''public interest'' in a disability discrimination
stoush in the Federal Court.
Jetstar and Virgin Australia have been accused of
discrimination by Sheila King, 78, who is reliant on a wheelchair as a
result of post-polio syndrome, and a car crash in 2008. At stake is the
business model of the low-cost airlines, which restrict
wheelchair-assisted passengers to two per flight.
It was Jetstar's tight margins as a low-cost operator
that convinced Federal Court judge Justice Alan Robertson that although
Mrs King had been discriminated against, Jetstar was allowed to do so
because of ''unjustifiable hardship'' provisions. Mrs King has
appealed.
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