There are 48 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the USA, and a total of 642 million globally. Combined with people with other disabilities these potential passengers make up the world’s largest minority market with a size equivalent to that of the population of China.
Last year, I gave a presentation to the New York City User Experience Professionals Association. During the Q&A segment an attendee who was using Communication Access Real-Time Translation (CART) – also known as real-time captioning – challenged me to explain why the aviation industry had ignored the needs of deaf and hard of hearing passengers, including providing closed captioning for inflight entertainment.
Svetlana Kouznetsova is a web and usability experience specialist with an interest in accessibility. Born with normal hearing, Kouznetsova became profoundly deaf in both ears at the age of two due to Meningitis. She is bilingual in Russian and English and uses lip-reading, writing/typing, and/or sign language to communicate with people depending on the situation and whom she talks with.
“Being a deaf/hard of hearing traveller is very frustrating – especially when travelling alone. There seems to be less understanding about deaf/hard of hearing travellers than those with other disabilities. Every time you inform crewmembers that you are deaf, many of them either hand you a wheelchair or a Braille print without understanding that you need visual access to aural information”, explains Kouznetsova.
The Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 (ACAA) prohibits commercial airlines from discriminating against passengers with disabilities and requires deaf and hard of hearing individuals to self-identify in order to receive accessible information. But Kouznetsova says, “This is not enough”. The US National Association of the Deaf agrees, saying, “Self-identification is not an effective means of obtaining accessible information, because information is provided in multiple locations by different people. Instead, all audible information should be routinely made accessible visually.”
I asked Kouznetsova to verbally walk me through a typical journey for her and identify the areas where there is room for improvement. She says, “When checking airline websites for information about accessibility for passengers with disabilities, I notice that most of them focus in detail on passengers with physical disabilities, and very little or nothing is said about deaf/hard of hearing passengers.”
“To avoid problems whenever possible I try to take a direct flight and pack light. If I check in a bag, I let the agent know that I’m deaf to make them aware when communicating with me. They issue me a boarding pass with a luggage ticket and write down the gate number and sometimes directions to the gate if I am not familiar with an airport.”
“Once I am at a gate, I inform the gate agent that I am deaf and ask them to inform me of any aural announcements. However, I have to remind them many times, and it’s one of the most frustrating parts of my travels. One time I almost missed my flight because I was not aware of a gate change. It would be good for all gates to have a display that would show captions every time an agent makes an aural announcement.”
“When I board, I show a written note to a flight attendant that I am deaf and ask them to let me know of any aural announcements in writing. Most attendants are accommodating, but there have been times when crew have forgotten to assist me or offered me the wrong type of support. Once a flight attendant (who I had already informed I was deaf) forgot to let me know that we were about to land – I was sleeping at that time, with my lap belt unbuckled (something that an attendant should have noticed) and woke up when I felt the plane touch down!
“Many airlines do not provide captioned inflight entertainment – which is the major complaint of deaf and hard of hearing travelers. During my recent transatlantic flights I saw only a few subtitled foreign movies, but 50-plus other movies and shows were not captioned. Yet, they had soundtracks in additional spoken languages.”
“When I have to transfer I ask for airport disability assistants to guide me from one gate to another to avoid issues with asking for verbal directions and missing the next flight. My requests were never fulfilled for domestic flights in the USA, and I was better accommodated during international flights when attendants called airports in advance for an assistant. Even then I had to remind flight attendants and to make sure to repeat that I did not need a wheelchair, just someone to guide me through a complex airport.”
In closing our interview Kouznetsova says, “I know that it is a lot to ask, but since deaf/hard of hearing travelers pay the same price for flights, they deserve the same access as other travelers. Besides, we live in the 21st century with advanced technologies that make accessibility to audio via text possible.”
Yesterday, news emerged that US Senator Tom Harkin has introduced a bill that would require captioning and video descriptions on IFE, and movie theaters. So progress is being made…albeit slowly.
March 22, 2013 at 8:50 pm
this needs to be addressed its bad enough that we don’t do theater movies or music .. my husband does alot of travelling alone and this is sooo stressful for him the government needs to address this our letters appealing to them falls on deaf ears
April 23, 2013 at 11:18 am
Hi Mary – thanks for your comment. We’ll be looking at this issue in more detail over the coming months and hope to be able to increase the level of awareness across the airline industry.
March 25, 2013 at 11:29 pm
I recently flew internationally for business. I am deaf but do rely on phrasing aids and speech reading. The flight attendants on the flight there were good about communicating by writing. I had to ask people though about announcements at the airports and on the flight. Some announcers were in English, German, and French – I couldn’t tell which language was being used without asking. The flight back was challenging for communication as well but flight attendants were helpful then too. The flights there and back were 8-10 hours, and lots of people watched movies for in-flight entertainment. I could’ve since none of it was captioned. I also had a hard time getting through customs on the way back since all announcements were verbal but not captioned. Deaf and hard of hearing passengers need captioning both at airports and in flight so we do not have to rely on everybody else to receive important information regarding changes in flights, boarding information, safety information, and access to in flight entertainment. Equal access to information and entertainment is a right.
April 23, 2013 at 11:19 am
Hi Sarah – thanks for your comment on my post. I agree that equal access to information and entertainment for all passengers is a right and we’ll be raising awareness of this issue across the airline industry over the coming months.
April 22, 2013 at 10:41 am
I’m deaf, and I’ve traveled on hundreds, maybe even thousands, of flights since 1991. My husband took a job with a major airline that year and we’ve enjoyed flight benefits since.
During one particular busy travel year, I decided to experiment during my time at the airport and inflight, interacting with airport and airline personnel. It was an interesting study and the flight where I was offered the most direct accommodation was on a flight where I chose not to speak for the entire trip. Somehow not speaking made my deafness more memorable.
A lot has changed in the last five to ten years, and airline/airport personel are more sensitive to the needs of deaf travelers, but it is very dependent on the actual person you are dealing with. I find little that is uniform and universal, even though I do mainly fly on one airline.
Contrary to what Ms. Kouznetsova states in your article, I was offered a wheelchair for the first time this year, and the same is true for being offered Braille assistance. I have heard others say they have been offered the wrong assistance, but in my experience it’s more a lack of offering any assistance at all. Most of the time my indicating “Hearing Impaired”, under the special services that are offered when arranging for my ticket online, is ignored and no one from the airline mentions my special status or even notes that I am deaf unless I bring it up, and I always do.
Another point: I’ve often observed that how we present ourselves makes a huge difference in how we are accommodated, and since I’ve worked out how best to get results, I do meet with much better service. I think those of us who travel with hearing loss need to continue to educate airport/airline employees on how to deal with us, as many employees still do not know what a deaf person needs, and not all of the fault for that lies with the airport and airlines. We who are deaf and have hearing loss are very diverse and I feel we sometimes send mixed messages about what is needed.
What is a good accommodation for one person, another finds offensive. Can we really expect the airline industry to provide accommodation according to every little detail of such a diverse group? Yes, the travel industry could do a much better job of accommodating us, but also , we need to present our needs in a way that allows for more uniform and universal response.
In addition, when we are traveling and are educating and advocating, we need to adjust the tone of our advocacy for optimum results–direct, informative, optimistic, and effective! ~~Michele Linder
April 23, 2013 at 11:23 am
Hi Michele – thanks for your detailed and balanced comments on my blog post. You raise some very interesting points – particularly about a passenger’s approach to requesting assistance and also the range of passenger diversity that airlines have to be ready to accomodate. We’ll be looking at this issue in more detail over the coming months and hope to be able to increase the level of awareness across the airline industry.
April 26, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Michele – what do you mean by “contrary to [my] article you were offered a wheelchair for first time”? I think you misunderstood what I said. What I was meaning that there are often situations that deaf people are not offered assistance and there are numerous occasions that they were offered wrong assistances. I have to constantly remind gate agents, for example, that do not fulfill my request to assist me. I know from my experience speaking to many deaf/hoh people. There was a panel by deaf talking to Delta representatives expressing the frustrations that I also share in the article. And I’ve been participates in numerous deaf groups where they were expressing concerns. I’ve done a thorough research on this before I was interviewed.
Regardless of diversity in their hearing and communication needs, many deaf and hard of hearing people need access to aural information via captions – announcements at a gate and on plane and captioned entertainment. That’s the reason why the senator is working on passing the law.
May 8, 2013 at 10:23 pm
It is all about communication and providing communication in a variety of ways. This is important for anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing, but also for people who are unfamiliar with the language, or people who are in a noisy environment (can anyone really hear the announcements in an echoing terminal?), or people who are just not paying attention (plugged into their music, telephone calls, etc.).
Fixing this is relatively simple to do – but you need to convince the airlines and the airport that it is important. Hearing loops will help those with hearing aids in airports and airplanes. Visual displays will help people who are deaf, or in a noisy environment. Symbology on the displays will help those who don’t speak the language. It is all do-able.