Deaf airline passengers seek captioned entertainment

Bart Jansen | USA TODAY

Andrew Phillips is frustrated by flying, but not just for the usual reasons.

Despite technology available now, Phillips, who is deaf, finds most in-flight entertainment doesn't have captioning so that he can enjoy it with other passengers.

"In my opinion, the airline industry has done a terrible job of making their in-flight entertainment options accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing community," Phillips, who is policy counsel for the National Association of the Deaf, told a Senate hearing recently. "It really bothers me that when I fly other countries' airlines, I am often able to watch movies with English subtitles."

A 2008 law called for airlines to become more accessible to the disabled. But after working on a rule for in-flight entertainment in 2011, the Transportation Department has been studying whether providing it is technically and economically feasible.

The department is working on a draft proposal for internal consideration, with the goal of a formal proposal in February, although the deadline is tentative.

Howard Rosenblum, CEO of the National Association of the Deaf, said the group has pushed for captioning of in-flight entertainment for decades.

"With existing technology, there is no excuse for not providing captioning capability on in-flight entertainment," Rosenblum said.

Because of the delays, Sen. Tom Harkin, whose older brother Frank was deaf, proposed legislation to require airlines to make captioning for the deaf and video description for the blind in entertainment on commercial flights.

"Americans who are deaf and hard of hearing continue to have difficulty accessing captioned versions of movies, videos and other entertainment content on an equal basis with their hearing peers," says the Iowa Democrat, who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Virgin America was fined $150,000 on Sept. 10 for failing to make its in-flight safety video accessible to passengers with hearing impairments. Virgin, which had been providing safety briefings in other ways, in mid-September added captioning to its safety video for all planes in the fleet, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Thomas.

Captioning is available in some entertainment on some flights. On foreign flights, for example, movies are captioned for language translation. Flights with DirecTV have captioning for television programs.

For example, United Airlines offers DirecTV in 787 and 757 premium service totaling about 215 aircraft, according to spokesman Charles Hobart. Plans to expand wi-fi to its entire fleet by 2015 will also allow passengers to use their own devices, he said.

"We will continue to roll out closed caption on our international fleet and work with our hardware, software and content providers to expand our offering of accessible content," Hobart says.

Contributing: Nancy Trejos