SWC June 2007 Newsletter

I didn’t know what to expect from Alaska Airlines when I checked the “hearing-impaired” box on my flight reservations for Vegas. In the past, friends have mentioned they’ve received priority seating, or had been tapped on the shoulder when it was time to board. Others had been accompanied through unfamiliar airports. Some had even gotten ASL interpreters on board for the flight safety ditty.

Not that I needed an interpreter. Or priority seating. Boarding could become complicated, I reasoned, because of flight delays and last-minute changes. At one airport they even changed the gate where we were supposed to load. I don’t hear boarding announcements. Because of this I have nearly missed a couple of past flights even though I checked in early. I can find my way through most airports, as long as I don’t need to take a tram with a computerized voice telling me where to get off. I can’t hear “the voice” and people usually stand in front of any flashing destination visuals. I had been planning to travel through two unfamiliar airports alone, so the idea of being accompanied by airport personnel while finding my way to connecting terminal gates, and someone tapping me on the shoulder when it was time to board, and desk attendants being aware of my inability to hear last-minute schedule changes appealed to me.

Being severe-profound hard-of-hearing, or late-deafened, or whatever anyone wants to call it, I can talk — and I talk well. The Association of Late-Deafened Adults coined the term “late-deafened” for those with late onset of a severe to profound hearing loss. I feel it fits me best. I am not culturally deaf or fluent in ASL, I grew up hearing with English as my first language, but I am far more hearing-impaired than people with a mild to moderate hearing loss and in need of accommodations in many situations out in public.

Most the time I’m glad I have good speech, but I have to admit my speech works against me when I’m trying to get accommodations. Often, as soon as I open my mouth, hearing people do not believe I can’t hear. They either assume I have a very small hearing problem or they forget about my hearing problem all together because my speech is so darned good. Consequently, I have learned the best thing to do when I want accommodations is not to speak. I know, I know. . . I HATE faking the mute act, but I gotta tell ya, it works.

Initially I had planned to speak in the airports and while flying. I went to the airport not knowing what to expect. Then, when the computer spit out my e-ticket at check-in, I saw a powerful word typed across the top of it in capital letters. DEAF. Remember, I had marked a “hearing-impaired” box. The airlines made a mistake, I thought. I made my way to the gate and showed my e-ticket to the desk attendant. I had planned to ask her to let me know when my flight was boarding because of my hearing-impairment, but as soon as she saw the words DEAF on my ticket her eyes popped out. I could see the panic in her face as she wondered what to do with me. That’s when I realized how powerful the DEAF word really was. Finally she recovered and asked, “Do you read?” Fumbling with pen and paper, she began writing a note. That was the moment I decided, I’m gonna go with this. I’ll fake it. I’ll be mute in the airports and on the planes. I can use this DEAF ticket to test the airline’s accommodations. I smiled to the attendant and wrote back.

My flight destination was to the SayWhatClub Vegas Convention 2007. Feeling a bit guilty faking being mute at the airport, I related the story to some of my late-deafened friends. After an unofficial poll, the majority admitted to occasionally doing the same when they wanted accommodations or needed to make a point. Because the hearing population is so misinformed, they simply do not believe we are disabled enough if we talk well. Faking is a desperate measure, but sometimes necessary. To prove my point, the only time I talked in an airport during my entire trip, I was not accommodated or treated with much courtesy by airport personnel.

OK, so you are probably wondering what kind of accommodations I got. Mixed bag. My impression is the airlines (and probably the rest of the world) don’t really know how to accommodate the deaf.

Because I was flying on a small plane to destination one, Portland , Sea-Tac Airport (in Seattle ) escorted me out to the tarmac on a small luggage jeep. Why a deaf person needed to be driven to the plane separately, I did not know. Evidently someone thought it would be safer. Perhaps they thought walking on a tarmac required perfect hearing.

The flight attendant between Seattle and Portland was good about using visuals. She held up a choice of drinks, and held up the two different snack options with raised eyebrows in a which-which gesture. She would have been a natural at ASL.

Airport two, Portland , had an attendant escort me all the way to my next gate, which I appreciated. I was pressed for time, and the walk to my gate was a long one requiring many twists and turns. However, once I got to the gate, the boarding attendant forgot to let me know when we were boarding, even though I had flashed my DEAF boarding ticket at him. I never heard the boarding call. Because the attendant assured me he would let me know when it was time to board, I read my book. Luckily I looked up in the nick of time and noticed people were getting on, and had been for quite some time!

The flight attendant on this flight knew how to fingerspell and a few basic ASL signs for drink, thank-you and emergency!

Airport three, Vegas, proved to be the biggest challenge. When I got off the plane, there was no one around to ask for directions. It seemed all airline employees had disappeared. I followed the signs and the crowd of people exiting from my plane. I needed to take a tram to the shuttles. Because I can’t hear tram voices, I didn’t know where to get off. I finally told a passenger I was deaf and asked her to notify me when we reached the stop for the shuttles. Next, finding the shuttles was almost as difficult. Arrows seemed to point in two directions. Knowing my hotel shuttle would stop running soon after the plane landed, I was pressed for time and began to worry. Finally I found an information desk and told the clerk there I was “very, very hard of hearing” and that I needed a hotel shuttle. She was kind enough to call the shuttle for me. Then she rattled off a list of complex directions to the shuttle pick-up location.

“Go straight blah-blah, through blah, blah, blah, blah, cross the blah, and wait blah, blah the bike rack.” Because I had spoken to her, she assumed I could understand complicated verbal directions about how to get to where the shuttles were. I repeated the directions twice to make sure I got them right.

My repeat went like this — “Go straight until I get to the bike racks?” Even though she knew I was “very, very hard-of-hearing” and “lip-reading” and even though I shoved a paper and pencil at her, she had a lineup and lost her patience the third time of repeating. I left her alone and walked off figuring I could ask someone else if I couldn’t find it.

Coming home through the Vegas airport was completely different, because I had decided to be “DEAF” and mute that time. Upon arrival, I showed my e-ticket to the ticket attendant. She asked if I wanted help navigating the airport and I answered I did, so I wouldn’t have to deal with the tram alone. She immediately called another attendant to help me through security. This was a great relief. Unfortunately, he showed up with a wheelchair and insisted I sit in it to be wheeled through the entire airport. I guess, like the other guy in Seattle , he thought lack of hearing affected one’s ability to walk (sigh). The desk and flight attendants on that leg of the trip were both really good about writing to me.

Rather than giving me two boarding tickets on the way back, Vegas only gave me one, so I had no idea where to go once I got off the plane in Portland . The flight attendants were simply going to let me loose, so I wrote to them I didn’t know where to go. I was passed off to a desk attendant right off the ramp, sitting next to a computer. There, I showed her my confirmation code on my Sidekick. I guess she figured if I was savvy enough to have a Sidekick with confirmation codes on it, I could probably find my way through an airport. She pulled my reservations up on her screen, printed off a new deaf boarding ticket, then started typing. “I bet you can find the gate yourself. It’s a long walk, but easy to find. Go straight down this hall as far as you can go, then turn left and walk all the way down that hall. It’s not hard.”

I SO appreciated her recognition of my intelligence and her willingness to write. On this leg of the trip back home, I had to catch a small plane again, which required walking out onto the tarmac. I wondered if I would have to ride in the luggage jeep like I had done up in Seattle . Nope. THIS time I was pre-boarded with a little girl and an elderly woman in a wheelchair. The little girl and I walked on. Since we had reserved seats, it turned out to be a coincidence I ended up sitting next to the little girl. We passed notes back and forth. She took care of my snack requests, told me when it was time to buckle, and when to turn off my cell phone. Of all the passengers I flew with, she seemed the most comfortable with my disability. She was great!

All in all, I think the airlines needs to train their staff more on what to do when presented with a hearing-impaired person. There needs to be more continuity. When hard-of-hearing and deaf people fly, we have no idea what to expect. Checking the hearing-impaired box can mean anything from NO accommodations to getting a wheelchair. I do not think this is because the people working in the airports are bad. I think it’s because they don’t know what to do. I believe they genuinely want to help us, and do what’s right, but they haven’t been told how to treat us, and maybe have never encountered someone who doesn’t hear. Take the guy who put me in a wheelchair. If the only deaf person he has ever known was his 90-year-old grandmother and she sat in a wheelchair, then in his mind, he was looking out for my best interest. That doesn’t mean he did the wrong thing, it just means there was a better way he could have handled the situation if he had more understanding of my hearing-impairment.

I am glad I “faked” it through the airports. Now I have lots of information I can use to write Alaska Airlines and these three airports, so they may improve their services to deaf people.