Accessibility at airports

Andrew Warren
Andrew Warren Member (Full) Posts: 9
in Travel and Transport

When I was traveling out of Rochester, NY (ROC) airport the other day, I happened to notice that one of the TVs switched from whatever information they were displaying to actual real-time captioning in full screen, it captioned the overhead announcement. This was a first for me to see!

I've seen some form of captioning at a few airports but they tend to be like ticker style in smaller font scrolling along at the bottom of whatever information (arrivals or departures, etc.) the TV was displaying like it was an afterthought or just trying to satisfy an ADA requirement.

This clearly shows that the ROC airport does notice they serve a significant population of Deaf/Hard of Hearing travelers and did collaborate with RIT/NTID or a deaf advocacy group. There were other accessibility features such as the lights at the gate changing when a flight started boarding.

What kind of significant accessibility service have you seen improved at an airport that should be universally applied to all airports?

Comments

  • Katarina Agbaba
    Katarina Agbaba Member (Full) Posts: 3
    edited October 15

    Hi! I was a Deaf international student at RIT/NTID from Serbia. It’s nice to see real-time captioning at ROC airport! I wanted to share that we’ve implemented new Deaf accessibility features at railway stations and airports in Serbia. We now have monitors showing SignAvatar signs in sign language, with two languages as subtitles below the screens. SignAvatar also translates PA system speech into sign language in real-time. This feature will be released in Croatia soon, in their native language. If you’d like to see more, I can send you an email or link. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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