Come and Fly the Hearing Skies!
Greetings from Aruba!
While I am enjoying the weather here, I was priviledged to read an associated press article on Aruba Today (a pretty nifty daily newspaper) concerning Tiger Airways Australia, a subsidiary of Tiger Aviation out of Singapore. This airline is pretty brand new, having flown their first flight on my birthday – November 23, 2007. They are considered as one of those LCC (Low Cost Carriers), with their business designed for lowered cost in flying passengers (not low fares, as some would say.)
Apparently, one of their policies are to prohibit people with hearing loss (not just Deaf people) from flying solo. No, not solo as in being a pilot (although that would still offend quite a few of those Deaf pilots I know of), but as a paying passenger. The article did not mention whether the airline spokesman Matt Hobbs had a look of a deer in front of a spotlight, but the denial were strong and strident:
But airline spokesman Matt Hobbs denied that the airline had such a policy, and said he was investigating why air crews and call center staff in the Philippines were telling passengers otherwise.
Fair enough, eh? Well, a bit of a further inspection online discovered this interesting article from an Australian newspaper, Herald Sun. Within this article, Matt Hobbs had something else to share for us Deaf folks:
A spokesman for Tiger Airways, Matt Hobbs, told the Herald Sun the policy was in place to protect the safety of all passengers in case of emergency.
Mr Hobbs said Tiger was not looking at revising its policy to let fully capable deaf adults travel without an aide.
“The carer issue is a standard practice, and it is there to protect the safety of all passengers, and without it, the safety of passengers could be jeopardised,” he said.
Then apparently he had what we call the “Oh Shit!” moment:
But Mr Hobbs rang back five minutes later saying the Tiger policy was actually to allow deaf people to travel without a carer.
Tiger would now address Mr Doyle and his travel companions.
“We are happy to apologise to the people involved for the inconvenience and embarrassment they might have experienced,” Mr Hobbs said.
Too late, Mr. Hobbs. Much thanks to Jane Metlikovec for her detailed reporting, going much further than the Associated Press. One other interesting thing to note within this article is that this is not quite an isolated case:
“There have been endemic problems in airlines over the past few years where people with disabilities have been refused carriage because of their disability,” Mr Innes told Sky News.
Mr. Innes is the Australian’s disability discrimination commissioner, someone who would have an acute awareness of this issue, not just limited to Deaf folks (many who would claim that we are not “disabled” yet are viewed by hearing folks as so.) To put such a high priority on hearing (which could be quite a problem in case of a very noisy environment, such as the infamous Aloha jet breakage — how could one hear another scream in the middle of such deafening wind noise? Skydivers understand this effect very well, relying on hand signs since they are unable to communicate verbally and hear each other while in open air.
As an aside, Aloha Airlines shut down business, as part of a tragic series of many airlines folding or declaring bankruptcy in the past two weeks. (Champion, ATA, Skywest, Skybus, Oasis, and Frontier).
Fortunately, US Airways does not have this policy or I would be out of a job. In fact, many airlines do have specific procedures they do follow to help you if you are deaf much to my annoyance. “Are you sure you don’t need us to help you to your seat?” one Northwest travel agent asked several years ago.
Yet none requires that I hire an interpreter to tell me, “Oh shit!”
Maybe we should start teaching flight attendants that sign, just in case.
