ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuit: an airline operator

Mario Garcia has filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on June 24, 2021, against an airline operator.

The complaint alleges numerous specific WCAG violations, including the lack of alternative text for graphics and images, missing title frames for identification and navigation, equivalent text not provided for scripts, and forms lacking functionality for disabled users. Further issues include text resizing problems, enforced time limits without user control, missing web page titles, indeterminable link purposes, indiscernible keyboard focus indicators, and programmatically undetermined human language. The site also allegedly suffers from components that initiate context changes on focus or setting changes without user advisement, missing labels for user input, and markup language errors such as incomplete tags, improper nesting, duplicate attributes, or non-unique IDs. Additionally, inaccessible PDFs, empty links, redundant links, and linked images lacking alt-text are cited as barriers.

This action highlights the ongoing legal risks faced by online service providers, particularly those operating in the travel sector, regarding digital accessibility. Businesses offering goods and services via websites must ensure their platforms are fully accessible to blind and visually-impaired individuals who rely on screen-reading software to avoid similar lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act and state civil rights laws.