air travel survey of people with hearing loss

People with hearing loss would like to see improvements in communications access in the air travel industry.

Thanks to the Northern Virginia Resources Center for this article

Copyrighted: NVRC, Cheryl Heppner  

One of our e-mail news readers is now working for United Airlines.  She asked what deaf and hard of hearing people would most like to see improved, and last week many of you shared your wish lists.  Here's what you told us:

COMMUNICATIONS IN THE TERMINAL

Have text displays of all announcements (this was the top request).

- "Domestic flight gates that are used for several flights are totally confusing now.  When flying by myself I literally hover around the desk when it gets close to boarding time. International flights that have one gate set aside are not so scary.  But it's awful when everyone else suddenly stampedes for the phones and you have no idea what is going on. How about setting aside a row of seats (for people with disabilities) that face the desk at the gate so we can watch the staff for clues and the visual displays when they get them?  It would help the staff to remember that they have a passenger who cannot hear what's going on.  Some gates used to do that but stopped and it's sometimes hard to find a seat close enough to watch."

- "I was in the airport one time when they were offering free trips for anyone wishing to take a later flight. I missed out because I could not hear."

- "Add text displays at ALL the counters  [for boarding announcements]. I was waiting in a long line while it was real crowded, and the agent talked or made some announcements to the passengers to cut off the line. I didn't know what flight nbr they asked for.  It was a hassle with many wild guessings."

- "I am a frequent traveler (I am on the road at least 50% of the time).  I have learned to fend for myself because the needs of the deaf just don't seem to sink in with the airlines.  Gate announcements are terrible, visible displays would definitely help.  Also, when I was in Portland, Oregon a few weeks ago (San Diego has this too) there is a visible pager - instead of the garbled spoken announcements you see the name of the person being paged on a display with instructions of what/where they are supposed to do/go."

- "Depending on how often deaf people travel they may or may not know the routine for checking in.  The law requires a little routine "did you pack your bags, have your bags been with you at all times .... etc."  Since it is rote it is harder to follow than normal speech.  It took me a long time and a lot of times of feeling like an idiot before I finally figured out what they were saying to me!  If the airlines had a card or a visual cue for deaf people it would help."

- "I would like to see the sign display above from the gate door to make announcement which seating numbers are next.  I had a problem with the announcement for seating numbers in the past - I couldn't hear the announcement about seating numbers and I went ahead to give my ticket to person but he or she told me to wait until the seating numbers were called.  I have to 'peek' on any passenger's ticket to see which seating number they had and follow them.  Or I try to board when there are less passengers."

TELEVISIONS

All televisions in the airport and on the plane should be showing captions for everything. All inflight movies should be captioned.

- "If the airlines still refuse to have captions for their inflight entertainment how about the check-in desk lending us little TV/VCR units with captioned videos (or something similar) to use on the plane or even a nice selection of new magazines or newspapers?"

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Airports need to make more TTYs available. Phones in the airplane should also be TTY compatible and a TTY should be available. Better signs to make it easier to locate the TTYs.

- "The midfield terminal (at Dulles) that United uses now has TTYs all over the place which is nice but they are positioned so you have to get down on your knees to use them.  This seems to happen all the time - do these businesses think every TTY user is in a wheelchair?   It would be nice to have more thought used in positioning the TTYs and maybe including a chair or stool.  Then of course all the hearing people would want to use that phone too - sigh.."

- "More public phones equipped with TTY's would be a big help, both to those of us who need to call the hearing impaired and to the hearing impaired, themselves."

- "Signs should be placed high enough to be read above/beyond other people (rather than at eye level), large enough to be read by even those with some visual impairment and in block letters against contrasting backgrounds."

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INFLIGHT EMERGENCIES

Text displays that would give instructions during flight emergencies.

- "It would also help if airlines realizing they have a deaf person not assign them to emergency rows - they make an announcement on board about who can sit in those aisles, deaf or disability is not mentioned but I think it is obvious deaf people should not sit in that row.  In an emergency we would not be able to follow instructions (I am not questioning our intelligence, rather our ability to understand spoken language during such situations.  Much as I like the space in an emergency aisle I will not allow myself to be seated there."

INFLIGHT COMMUNICATION

Text displays of some kind that would make it possible to read what the pilot or other flight staff announce throughout the flight.

GENERAL SENSITIVITY

Have the staff familiar with "Effective Communication with Hard of Hearing and Deaf People" (fact sheets available at NVRC).

OTHER COMMENTS:

- "My feelings/wishes about Airline Access are the same as for trains, buses, convention centers, etc.  Audio (PA) Announcements in large, public areas such as terminals are usually very hard to understand, even for me and I'm not considered hearing impaired.  I find text displays of information VERY helpful and more available when I need them than verbal announcements." They should be placed high enough to be read above/beyond other people (rather than at eye level), large enough to be read by even those with some visual impairment and in block letters against contrasting backgrounds.

Thank you, Joan Cassidy, Cynthia Clark, Oz Crosby, Blaise Delahoussaye, Brenda Estes, Kristine Fisk, Alan Hart, Jon, Anne Kramer, Hilary Relton, and many others!