Nothing about us flying, without us: establishing a baseline for disabled travel through inclusive design research

Air travel remains one of the least understood and most stressful service environments for disabled people. While airlines often invest in accessibility improvements, they frequently do so without reliable baseline data grounded in disabled people’s lived experience. This presentation shares findings and reflections from a mixed‑method design research project undertaken with Air New Zealand to establish a baseline understanding of disabled travel across the trans‑Tasman route.
The research was designed and led using a disability rights and participatory research lens. It combined an accessible online survey offered in multiple formats, in‑depth interviews, ethnographic travel research with 12 disabled people flying between Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, and a disability leadership workshop with advocates and sector leaders. Participants represented a range of physical, sensory, cognitive, and psychosocial impairments, as well as intersecting identities.
The study focused on the end‑to‑end travel journey, including booking, check‑in, security, boarding, in‑flight experience, arrival, and recovery after travel. Rather than treating accessibility as a set of isolated problems, the research examined how systems, policies, staff practices, digital touchpoints, and social attitudes combine to either enable or restrict safe and dignified travel.
This paper contributes three key outcomes to design research. First, it demonstrates how inclusive research methods can generate richer and more trustworthy data than standard customer research approaches. Second, it provides rare baseline evidence of common barriers and points of harm experienced by disabled travellers, including emotional labour, risk transfer, and loss of autonomy. Third, it reflects on the role of disabled leadership in shifting research from extractive consultation to shared authority.
By situating disabled people as experts of their own experience, this research challenges deficit‑based models of accessibility and offers a replicable approach for designers and organisations working in complex service systems. The findings are relevant to design researchers, service designers, and industry practitioners seeking to move beyond compliance towards meaningful inclusion.