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I would argue against making airlines responsible for the accessibility of medium to large OTAs, or any for that matter. I find it confusing that the DOT would put the burden of responsibility for accessibility of OTA websites on the airline rather than on the OTAs directly. If the airlines were held responsible, the methods DOT suggests for them meeting this responsibility vastly differ. Sending a notice is easy. Checking for full accessibility compliance is not and is costly. Is the expectation that the airline would do more than send a notice or adjust contracts to note that the OTA site(s) should be accessible or be held accountable for any fines? Would it be the airline fined rather than the OTA if a violation of regulations was found? It seems to me that OTAs are currently responsible for being DOT-compliant with regard to fare advertisements (note the recent fines faced by Orbitz). Those ads are content of their website directly controlled by them. Why would we expect airlines to face fines for content and functionality that they do not directly control?
I don’t think making airlines responsible is the only way. It shouldn’t be. I think DOT should regulate the way in which air travel is sold whether it is by the carrier or not. It already does apparently with fare advertisements on sites like Orbitz, so why wouldn’t it with regard to website accessibility requirements?
I would argue against making airlines responsible for the accessibility of medium to large OTAs, or any for that matter. I find it confusing that the DOT would put the burden of responsibility for accessibility of OTA websites on the airline rather than on the OTAs directly. If the airlines were held responsible, the methods DOT suggests for them meeting this responsibility vastly differ. Sending a notice is easy. Checking for full accessibility compliance is not and is costly. Is the expectation that the airline would do more than send a notice or adjust contracts to note that the OTA site(s) should be accessible or be held accountable for any fines? Would it be the airline fined rather than the OTA if a violation of regulations was found? It seems to me that OTAs are currently responsible for being DOT-compliant with regard to fare advertisements (note the recent fines faced by Orbitz). Those ads are content of their website directly controlled by them. Why would we expect airlines to face fines for content and functionality that they do not directly control?
Will transactional HTML emails generated by the website be included in the content that is required to be accessible?
I don’t think making airlines responsible is the only way. It shouldn’t be. I think DOT should regulate the way in which air travel is sold whether it is by the carrier or not. It already does apparently with fare advertisements on sites like Orbitz, so why wouldn’t it with regard to website accessibility requirements?