by Jen Mallia
Last updated: 1:05 PM ET, Mon August 24, 2026
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has ruled that WestJet’s 136 kg (300 lb) weight cap on motorized wheelchairs on some of its planes must be scrapped. It’s a ruling that wheelchair users and their families applaud.
In 2024, WestJet introduced the weight limit, which the airline stated was required for flight safety. According to reporting by the Canadian Press, WestJet landed on the 300-pound threshold following a technical analysis, which examined the “maximum allowable weight limit per square inch for the cargo holds” of its Boeing-made planes.
The cap meant that travellers who use heavy wheelchairs were effectively barred from flying on routes that use those aircraft.
In 2025, former Member of Parliament and Minister of State (Transportation) Steven Fletcher, was denied travelling with his custom-made wheelchair on a trip between Winnipeg and Toronto. He took his case to the CTA, which have now ruled that the limit presented an “undue barrier” and dictated that WestJet has until July, 2027 to change its policy.
The agency advised the airline it should make use of “spreader plates” which distribute weight across cargo holds, and must arrange alternate travel for passengers until they are able to accommodate heavy wheelchairs on WestJet planes. Another ruling on how much notice travellers with heavy wheelchairs must give to the airline is still pending.
The ruling is good news for the family of 14-year old Georgia Nataraj, who uses a 400 lb wheelchair. The Saskatchewan family was told by WestJet they would be unable to fly with the wheelchair on their planned Mexican vacation from Saskatoon last winter. The airline gave them the option to cancel the flights or to drive to Calgary to catch a bigger plane that would be able to accommodate the chair. The family opted not to drive the Prairie winter roads with their four children, and ultimately received a refund for the cancelled flights.
Georgia’s father, Richard Nataraj is relieved by the ruling and hopes the family will be able to fly WestJet in the future. “We’re disappointed that it had to come to this,” he told local news station CKOM. “We obviously think that WestJet made incorrect policy decisions, and we wish that they would have come to their own understanding of that and changed their decision on their own.”
Fletcher also feels the ruling is heading in the right direction for accessible travel. “They have stigmatized and alienated and excluded an entire population of Canadians — through no fault of their own — just because of some arbitrary number which doesn’t hold up,” he told the Canadian Press.
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