This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for coming to the panel this morning. We are very excited about the discussion to come. And I will start with introducing myself. I am Zainab Alkebsi. I work as policy counsel for the National Association of the Deaf, and in terms of a description, I am a Middle Eastern woman, I have black curly hair today, shoulder length, dark rimmed glasses, and a dress with a jacket on top. My pronouns are she/her. I represent NAD today, but that said, I've had the pleasure of working very closely with the PVA representatives in airline travel and accessibility issues. So I am delighted to be a part of the panel today with PVA representatives.
And I'll hand it over to Danica.
DANICA GONZALVES: Hi, I'm Danica Gonzalves, the advocacy attorney at Paralyzed Veterans of America, and I work on disability rights. As a visual description, I am a white woman with long brown hair that I have half clipped back. I am wearing a blue blazer and a red-blue patterned dress. Our co-presenters from also my colleagues at Paralyzed Veterans of America, Lee Page, who was our senior associate advocacy director, and Heather Ansley, associate Executive Director of government relations, are unable to be here today. Both are currently testifying on the Hill at this exact moment on these topics that we will be talking about today. Lee is testifying before the House transportation and infrastructure committee, the aviation subcommittee on the FAA reauthorization, to discuss the air travel experience of passengers with disabilities, and the need to pass the Air Carrier Access Amendments Act.
Heather is testifying before the Senate commerce committee on passengers with disabilities and also the need to pass the Air Carrier Access Amendments Act. These two committees oversee aviation in Congress and the issues impacting air travel and passengers with disabilities showed by these two committee hearings today are finally receiving the federal attention to advance necessary pending legislation and regulatory actions that will allow passengers with disabilities to travel safely and with dignity.
In 1986, the Department of Justice -- or sorry, Department of Transportation, or DoT, brought on appeal of a lawsuit filed by Paralyzed Veterans of America, or PVA, to the Supreme Court to determine whether Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act applied to air carriers. So section 4 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. The argument was that the United States provides financial assistance to air carriers through federal grants, but the Supreme Court held that Section 504 is not applicable to commercial airlines. In response, Congress passed the Air Carrier Access Act, or ACAA. This makes it illegal to discriminate against passengers with disabilities. The DoT is responsible for enforcing the ACAA. So because of the ACAA, carriers cannot refuse transportation to passengers with disabilities. Before the law, air carriers could just deny transportation. They may deem it too difficult to transport an individual with a disability and could refuse transportation.
In addition, under the ACAA, carriers cannot require a passenger to provide advanced notice that they will be traveling, though carriers still encourage this. Especially if the passenger will need special assistance. Carriers can also not require that a passenger travel with a companion. There are a few exceptions. For example, if the passenger will need essential in-flight medical assistance. In addition, carriers cannot charge for the accommodations that they provide. Also, carriers cannot require a passenger with a disability to accept the special services. In addition, the law requires air carriers to provide certain accommodations: Assistance with boarding, deplaning, and connections. And we'll talk more about this in the presentation. Air carriers must also train personnel who deal with the traveling public to proficiency on procedures and the law.
However, passengers often find that the wheelchair attendants are not adequately trained, which leads to injuries. Sometimes cannot even communicate with the attendants because of language barriers. Or they're just not well trained on the requirements of the ACAA. The carrier must also have specially trained complaint resolution officers that are specially trained in resolving disability-related complaints. Large aircrafts must give lavatory on twin aircrafts. However, most domestic aircrafts are only single aisle. So right now there is no law requiring single-aisle aircrafts to have an accessible lavatory. So without access to an accessible lavatory, often we hear members must dehydrate or fast or do anything to not have to use the lavatory. This can be humiliating as they have to sit in soiled clothes. They might have to use a urine bag. Or, worse, it can even lead to health issues.
In July 2022, the passenger Bill of Rights was passed, basically talking about the rights to be treated with dignity and respect, to receive information about accessibility services in an accessible format, for assistance on aircrafts and at airports, to travel with a mobility assistance device or service animal, receive seating accommodations, require accessible aircraft features per federal regulation, and resolution to disability-related complaints. The department says disability issues are important but is still not doing enough. For example, DoT can get involved on these complaints and levy civil penalties, but they rarely do so. So there is current legislation that seeks to fix these deficiencies. Currently, if a passenger has or experiences a violation of the ACAA, there are limited options. So they can file a complaint with the airline or DoT who does enforce the law, but after a 2001 Supreme Court case, Alexander v Sandoval, there is no private right of action under the ACAA. However, courts have allowed some state tort claims to proceed that do not apply to the requirements of the act and these have been claims for things such as negligence.
So one option a passenger has is to file an informal complaint with the airline or the Department of Transportation. So these complaints can be filed directly with the airline. Generally those are online or on the phone. Different airlines have different processes. I have found that they often put it in a difficult place to find to file these complaints, but it is an option. Another option is to file an informal complaint with the Department of Transportation directly, and these are filed as disability-related complaints. The Department of Transportation's website has the instructions for filing these complaints. Airlines should respond within 30 days, but they routinely don't do so, especially right now because they are processing so many complaints that they are often failing to meet the 30-day requirement.
Informal complaints are not public, but the airlines must report the numbers to the Department of Transportation on a quarterly basis, and those numbers are released quarterly to the public. The other option is to file a formal complaint, and these look similar to a legal brief and have very specific instructions that you have to meet for the filing. After there is a formal complaint, the airline does have to respond, and the DoT will review the complaint and potentially investigate levy fines and require airlines to make changes. These complaints are public. That would include the complaint, answer, Department of Transportation filings, and those are made available on regulations.gov. If you choose to file a formal complaint, you can file a second complaint that is redacted, and that can be posted online for the public to protect your client's information.
Last year, PVA did file a formal complaint against American Airlines. This complaint was on behalf of five PVA members and included 13 flights with various ACAA violations. These included issues with members being dropped and injured during transfers; the air carrier failed to have the wheelchair available when the passenger landed; and even a flight where the copilot threatened to call the police when a member did not deplane because their wheelchair was not available at the destination. PVA filed a complaint on behalf of our members. American Airlines responded through private counsel, denying a majority of the claims on the basis, and this is a legal denial used all the time, that they lacked sufficient knowledge or information to admit or deny the claim so they denied them. We are still waiting DoT's response. And I will turn it over to Zainab to cover air carriers and effective communication. First we have a question.
SPEAKER: I was just wondering if now was an appropriate time for a question?
DANICA GONZALVES: We can take one now and save others for the end.
SPEAKER: Just as a practical matter, how response responsive is the Department of Transportation to the complaints filed within 30 days of the violation?
DANICA GONZALVES: Department of Transportation is very unresponsive. PVA has a very good relationship with the Department of Transportation. We personally know the DoT personnel that we file the complaint with. We filed our complaint last summer. Like I said, it had over 13 flights and we still have no response from Department of Transportation .
SPEAKER: And for a regular person out there who wants to file with counsel, there's no attorney provision for fees or anything like that, I imagine.
DANICA GONZALVES: No. There are no attorney fees. There are -- because there's no private right of action, there are no monetary gains for attorneys. And unfortunately that means that a majority of attorneys do not practice in aviation disability discrimination law, just because there's no money.
SPEAKER: Thank you.
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: Thank you, Danica. So this is Zainab again, and I am going to cover effective communication vis-a-vis air carriers.
At the moment, the ACAA only requires that safely videos be captioned. And that's if the airlines provides a video for safety instructions prior to flight. Every airline does something, some of which includes those videos. So if the video production is part of it, it has to be captioned. That is the only required captioning that is in the ACAA. The only element. That obviously leaves a huge gap for all the other forms of media in a flight for people's entertainment. Unfortunately, for Deaf and hard of hearing passengers, the large variety of movies and TV shows are not captioned on flights.
There's a similar problem for people who are blind. Those forms of media are not audio described either. In addition to the lack of captioning requirements, there is also no accessibility for any in-flight announcements made by crew, whether standard or in the event of an emergency. Those announcements are not captioned in any way. So Deaf and hard of hearing passengers will have no idea what is transpiring because there are no captions. Obviously you can see that that could lead to dangerous situations in the event of an emergency, not knowing what to do, not knowing what's going on, where the passengers have been instructed to stay or deplane. That's a couple of really incredibly deep gaps that we're seeing for Deaf and hard of hearing passengers in the airspace and we're seeing disparate impact where those flights are concerned.
Danica's point about gaps to no right to private action where the ACAA is concerned is also an element that impacts the NAD's membership as well. And I said Deaf and hard of hearing people's experiences in terms of accessibility. The issues are myriad. Many of us fly, but we have not yet been successful either in suing the air carriers. We can't sue them directly. Department of Transportation , same way as PVA's filings, they have not responded to our filings either in quite some time. And you can file a complaint directly with the airline, but again, we're not getting a good response on that. So we're seeing nothing.
You can file with the FCC. The units on the seat backs have streaming service that comes through public Wi-Fi. So they are streamed in. And so the methods of delivery to the IFEs, in-flight entertainment, on the seat backs, are regulated under the FCC. So there's some overlap there that may provide us with an option. So if we conclude that we're not getting any luck in response from DoT, then FCC might be another avenue that's fruitful. Now, it just happens that my boss is a very frequent flier. So he keeps meticulous records of every flight, every movie, every television show that he tries to bring up that does not yet have captions on every flight that he takes. So he's got quite a picture.
When we sent our preliminary work into the FCC, the initial response was that we had a novel approach to a complaint and they're interested in it. That's a good start. From that time forward, we realized that we hadn't heard anything back from the FCC subsequent to the initial conversation. So we reached back out to them and said, is there any update on how this is going. And they said, oh, we're still investigating. So we left it there and time went on as we work on other topics and discrimination cases around the country. Each time we check back in, though, we're getting the same response. To this day, they say they're still investigating and we have not yet seen any resolution to that. So unfortunately we're not getting any traction yet in the FCC space either. So currently what we're pursuing as an alternative is legislative strategies. We'll get into that a little bit further directly.
Then the other point I would like to make here is that for the in-flight entertainment on airlines, the issue is not new. Airlines have been providing some kind of in-flight entertainment for years. And yet, to this day, the large quantity of movies and TV shows that they show are not captioned. They're still not audio described. There's really no excuse for it at this stage. The captions are available on almost every aspect. They're on the TV shows. They're on the movies. You can see them on your home networks. The devices all have that capability. What that means is, most, if not all, of the movies and TV shows available in the airlines catalogs that they offer to passengers have captioning ability. There is a captioning file for them. The caption file is out there. So that means that the airline is absolutely capable of ensuring that the content that they select coming in from their distributors comes in with the captioning file attached. There's zero excuse for them not doing that. The content is already there.
In terms of the technology, there's no excuse. The almost every device has the capability of showing captions. Smartphones can do it. iPads and tablets can do it. Laptops can do it. Even some airline companies that do show captioning on their displays can show that captioning. The technology, again, is absolutely feasible. It's there already. This is not an excuse. There is no excuse for them not showing captions. Where this topic is concerned, the airlines have no excuse. So if you were to put yourself in the position of a Deaf or hard of hearing passenger on a flight, you've paid the same price for your ticket as the other passengers on the flight, you've taken your seat, and you may have a long haul flight coming your way, perhaps DC to LA So that's several hours of entertainment time that you could possibly avail yourself of. You turn on the in-flight entertainment, check the catalog, and try to find through the options which ones may have captions.
By the way, all of those airlines that do offer some captions typically don't have a good way of allowing the user to find which movies have that option. So that means, again, the Deaf person, even if there is some captioned content available on the device, still has to go through every single movie or TV show to find which ones are marked with a captioning icon. Some airline companies have zero captioning on anything. So that said, if you, again, are in the position of a Deaf person, put yourself in their shoes, imagine the frustration of going through every movie and trying to find one with captions, and finding none. Or one or two come up with captioning but you've already seen it. All of that time becomes a very frustrating experience for Deaf and hard of hearing air travelers.
When we look at all of those pieces together, the crew meanwhile may be making announcements to the passengers in the cabin. Deaf and hard of hearing people, again, have no idea what those messages and public service announcements may be. And if you're sitting in the back, with a seat back device in front of you, the device will pause the in-flight entertainment and you'll see something like a short sentence about an announcement in process. So you could use that exact same screen to put the text of the announcement in. So if you know that there's an announcement in progress, there's no reason to not know what that announcement is. Deaf and hard of hearing passengers, however, have to ask someone what's been said and whether it's important.
So the fact that that message comes up on the in-flight screen says that the text ability exists. So if they did show the text of the announcement on the in-flight entertainment screen, it would be a benefit not just to Deaf and hard of hearing passengers but also to others, because oftentimes what I have found, typically I travel with my husband, I see the message come up, and I say to him, what are they saying, and sometimes he has no idea either because it's garbled or he's listening to music or there's other ambient noise. And he'll say, I have idea either. And I'll be like, husband, you are no help.
[Laughter]
The point is, having the text come up on the screen would benefit all passengers. A lot of passengers like to listen to music or other devices. \Or even people who don't realize they have a hearing loss yet, are not at the stage of recognizing the impact of it for them. All of this takes me back to the idea of the strangeness of the resistance to making captioning for both entertainment and for public service announcements. The text capability exists. It's the exact same concept of speech to text. Devices can carry it, movies can carry it, and like I said earlier, it has universal benefit. My husband is hearing. He prefers to watch movies and TV shows with captions just like I do because it often helps him understand the dialogue better. So all of those aspects to me are absolutely common sense solutions that are universally beneficial, not just for Deaf and hard of hearing passengers on airlines. The bottom line for us is that Deaf and hard of hearing passengers pay the same price for their ticket as everybody else but do not receive the same enjoyment of services.
Next slide, please. To address all of these issues, and again, these are not new; they are longstanding issues where airlines are concerned. Back in 2016, the Department of Transportation initiated what we call regulation negotiations. And during those reg neg sessions, they would bring together a multitude of stakeholders and convene them for conversations and negotiations around getting some consensus on the proposed regulation renewal and what that might look like. And as I said, this started in 2016 when this round of reg negs were convened. As the NAD representative, I was there representing the Deaf and hard of hearing constituents. There were people representing blind constituents, wheelchair users. We had various air carrier representatives there. A multitude of stakeholders. And those negotiations went on for 6-7 months, and they were very intense. That process was incredible. The first few months honestly, the air carriers were just incredibly resistant to the issues that we had raised. A lot of the time seemed to be spent on educating them rather than discussing the negotiations per se, because many of the arguments that they raised were things like, well, it's not technologically feasible. And we would say, actually, it is, and demonstrate accordingly.
And then the next time we would come in and they would say, oh, goodness, the cost is prohibitive. And we would say, actually, it's not, based on their own annual reviews and numbers. So 0.01% of their total revenue might be what was needed to be expended on these fixes. So we went back and forth in this for those first several months, spending inordinate amounts of time on that educational component.
Then about halfway through the process, it finally felt as if they started to come down from that sense of resistance, and we started to get a little traction on effective processes. By the end of the negotiation cycle, I felt we were able to get some consensus on in-flight entertainment, but unfortunately not on the public service announcement component. That part is still being worked on. But we got some consensus on the in-flight entertainment. The agreement that all parties were signatories to was that, first of all, any new systems for in-flight entertainment must support closed captioning and audio description.
If any air carrier had any old inaccessible seat back in-flight entertainment screens, etc., that weren't accessible, then they needed to provide in its place a personal device to that particular passenger for the duration of the flight, and the device provided has to have parallel amount of catalogs of movies and TV entertainment, etc. So you couldn't say that the old hardware has 100 options and the device given only has 5 options. It had to be parallel. The other aspect of that agreement was that the air carriers, again, would be responsible for requesting and ensuring that the content they were getting in from distributors of media was coming in with the captioning file and the audio description file included. And therefore it has to be built into the contracting process with those meeting distributors. So the airlines should be able to look at the files they're getting and say, we don't have the files we need, give them to us, you are contractually obligated.
That was another interesting issue because the airlines were saying, well, we're stuck with what they give us. If they don't give us the movie with the caption file, there's nothing we can do. That's why we were able to get into the discussions with them about that element of the contract with media distributors.
Now, unfortunately, around about the time that we got to that agreement stage, and again, I mention this began in 2016, you can probably think of something that may have happened in 2016 that was fairly momentous for the country in terms of possibly election results. So with that administrative change, we also -- or actually, let me say this first. Prior to that election result, we were getting really, really close to that consensus. And that was supposed to then just be simply signed and sent on to the head of Department of Transportation , who would then disseminate the formal notice of proposed regulations for the formal commentary period, which would then become a formalized contract going forward. But because of that change in the administration, our reg negs did not get prioritized and did not go to the leadership at Department of Transportation . It instead sat on a dusty shelf for quite some time until the next change of administration. We now have a new head at Department of Transportation, so we have again been sending in frequent reminders about the fact that this negotiation has agreement from the stakeholders and it's been waiting since 2016 and we would like to get going, highlighting the fact that the stakeholders all agreed on this, and there was consensus. So Deaf and hard of hearing passengers have been waiting a very long time and get further behind where flights are concerned.
The airlines could have done a lot of this work voluntarily themselves in the meantime. They didn't. So again, they're waiting for the regulations to be promulgated before they take any action. So in the absence of the air carriers voluntarily just taking care of this and action happening at DoT, we are now pursuing legislative solutions. And I mentioned that earlier. The two that we're looking at is the airline information and entertainment access act. That would require the Department of Transportation to mandate that captioning is available in all in-flight entertainment and audio description is likewise included. And there are captioning through visual and other forms for any public service announcements that happen in flight. So basically what the agreement says that we reached in 2016, we're pursuing legislatively as well.
The bill was first entered in the 117th Congress. The goal is to resubmit it to the floor this year, in the 118th Congress, as part of the FAA reauthorization act, rather than as a standalone bill, because we felt that it may have more success that way. The other piece of legislation that we're pursuing is the Air Carrier Access Amendments Act. And that would work as an amendment to the original ACAA that we've been talking about today. And I believe my colleagues at PVA are going to discuss that a little further during this presentation. So with that, I'll hand it back to Danica.
DANICA GONZALVES: Thank you, Zainab. I personally watch all videos with closed captioning. Auditory processing is not one of my assets. I had to ask directions to this room five times because I kept forgetting what they were saying. So I understand why even for someone that is not Deaf or hard of hearing, why this is such an important aspect, because I too want to enjoy my videos that I can't then remember what they said. So something else, and I already alluded to this, is the boarding and deplaning and transfers. When you are in a wheelchair, there's no accessible path of travel on airplanes. I don't know if you've noticed, but their aisles are very narrow. And a wheelchair cannot fit down them.
So the individual is transferred to what is called an aisle chair. It's a very narrow chair that they have to, if they're paralyzed, be lifted on to by airline personnel. They often use contractors, strapped into the chair, pulled backwards down the aisle, picked up, put into their chair, and this is often a major issue. Imagine having a connecting flight. You just added two more transfers to your flight. Our members get dropped often, or the contractor might not unstrap the straps on the aisle chair and they fall. And this has led to a lot of injuries. We are currently trying to push anything that will help the airlines better train their contractors and personnel on lifting, but this is such a major issue that it stops people for traveling by air that have to use aisle chairs.
Also another major issue for wheelchair users are the wheelchairs are often damaged, lost, or delayed by the air carrier. When an airline damages or loses your wheelchair, this means you're often given a substitute wheelchair, which is not customized for your body. This can lead to the development of pressure sores, which can also lead to hospitalization and death. This happened to one of our great Disability Rights Advocates, her wheelchair was damaged. She had to use a substitute wheelchair, which led to a pain sore, hospitalization, and untimely death. So we are heavily advocating for airlines to include proper stowage procedures for wheelchairs and other mobility devices.
One of the improvements we're hoping for in the future is that wheelchair users can remain in their own personal wheelchair when flying. In September 2021, the Access Board held a public briefing because they had a study by the Transportation Research Board or TRB about the feasibility of installing wheelchair securement systems on passenger aircrafts.
And the study was unable to identify any issues that would present design and engineering challenges that call into question the feasibility of in-cabin securement systems, and that this needed to be explored further. They specifically need to look at whether these securement systems would meet the standards for crashability worthiness, but they think that if they undertake research, that these questions may be answered. And on the ADA anniversary in July of last year, Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, announced that Department of Transportation would be taking the necessary steps to move toward a future of allowing passengers to fly in their personal chairs. As I've already talked about, one of the major issues with the Air Carrier Access Act is no private right of action. Before the 2001 Supreme Court case, some courts had allowed lawsuits under the act, but after the Alexander v Sandoval case, courts have held that there is no private right of action. That case held -- it was not an Air Carrier Access Act case, but what it said is that if Congress did not put express private right of action into the law, the courts cannot create one. So since the ACAA does not explicitly have a private right of action, the courts have now said there is not one.
So six circuit courts have ruled specifically since 2001 that there is no private right of action under the ACAA. There are four circuits that have not made this ruling, but district courts and their jurisdictions have made this ruling. There has not been any cases in the seventh circuit court jurisdiction, but they likely would hold the same thing. So in February 2020, the American Bar Association issued a resolution urging Congress to amend the act to establish a private right of action. So individuals that suffered injuries can have legal relief.
There is also the current legislation that is seen to make this fix. And the current legislation that we have been alluding to is the Air Carrier Access Amendments Act. This was just introduced in the Senate by Senator Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin, and in the House by Representative Dina Titus. And this seeks to fix a number of the issues that we talked about.
First, it would require Department of Transportation to assess civil penalties for discrimination violations. And if they see a pattern of discrimination, this would be referred to the Department of Justice, because as we talked about, the DoT rarely levies penalties right now so airlines have no deterrent to change. Second, it would establish a private right of action that would allow passengers to file lawsuits for disability discrimination or violations under the air carrier act. Third, it would require the Department of Transportation to formulate standards, to address things like boarding and deplaning, effective communication, accessible lavatories, seating accommodations, and stowing of wheelchairs. Four, the act would also require gates, counters, ticketing areas, and customer service desks to be accessible, because currently there are no standards for these portions of the airport as well. So the act has many other provisions, but these are the ones we see as major improvements. If the act passed, hopefully the act passes, the airlines would have 5 years to comply with the standards. So as of Tuesday, the Senate Bill has six sponsors and the House Bill has 18 sponsors.
The other law we have referred to is the 2023 FAA reauthorization. So the FAA reauthorization was passed in 2018 of the most recent. It's a 5-year bill. So it expires in the 2023 fiscal year which is September 20th of this year. So Congress has two options: They can either extend the bill or they can pass a new law. Advocates are seeing the FAA reauthorization as an opportunity to be a vehicle for the disability right improvements that we need. And that would include the Air Carrier Access Amendments Act; a bill called the Emergency Vacating of Aircraft Cabin Act or EVAC. Because Department of Transportation and FAA have not relooked at this since the '70s, which was before the disability rights bills. And so the EVAC Act would require them to update these completely outdated standards.
It would also include the prioritizing Accountability and Accessibility for Aviation Consumers Act, which would increase transparency, how quickly, effectively, and efficiently disability complaints are received, addressed, and resolved by Department of Transportation. So there are a couple of deadlines for the drafts. The House transportation and infrastructure chairman wants the draft by July. And we have heard the Senate commerce committee chair wants their draft by April. So these are the two Congress committees that oversee aviation and the two that Lee and Heather are currently testifying at this very moment. Lastly, there are also pending regulatory actions by the Department of Transportation. So first, as I've already said, there are no requirements for accessible lavatories on single-aisle aircrafts. This has been pending rulemaking. And the DoT has indicated they are going to put out a final rule on accessible lavatories in late spring, early summer of this year. So that rule has a very lengthy time line.
As proposed, it would only apply to new aircrafts ordered 18 years after the law passes or delivered 20 years after the law passes. PVA has been talking with the airlines for over 6 years about this requirement, and we are requesting DoT shorten this time line to 12 years ordered and 14 years delivered. But in worst case and best case scenario, it's going to be decades before we see this fully implemented.
The other request that we have asked is for DoT to address issues concerning assistance to passengers who use aisle chairs and how the airlines collect the incidents onboarding and deplaning issues, and how airlines react when the wheelchairs or scooters are mishandled. So we called on the DoT to act on this. They held a public meeting in March of 2022, and we are still awaiting rulemaking on that.
And also, as already said, in July 2022, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation said they are going to be looking at the steps to allow passengers to remain in their personal wheelchairs while flying. So overall, we're very excited about these actions that are finally moving, and we believe that with support of advocates, we can actually effectuate change. So we have 4 minutes if we want to end on time, if we have any questions.
Question and Answer Section
CLAIRE: I have a question for Zainab. You talked about the two bills that NAD is working on. In the first one, it talked about captioning and audio description for the blind. One concern I've heard, especially in the blind community, is that if it's passed, it will require the audio description. But will it require the system itself to be accessible, i.e., like screen reading software? Because if you have audio description but you can't get in the system yourself independently, what's the point? So is there going to be any language that talks about the system itself being accessible?
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: This is Zainab. That's a great question. That actually came up during the negotiations back in 2016, and your predecessor was part of that conversation. I'm happy to send you the current language if you would like to see it. I believe it reflects what you just asked. And I believe that the language as it stands today comparatively is very close to what was agreed on back in 2016's negotiations. Again, happy to send that language to you so you can see exactly what it says. The language right now does cover both content and devices in terms of accessibility.
CLAIRE: Thank you.
DANICA GONZALVES: I see four hands. We will take two because of time. And then you can come up to us after the presentation if you want to discuss anything further. I see an individual on my right side at the very back.
SPEAKER: Following along Claire's question, oftentimes, especially there's also on certain airlines, like American, we have to use our own cell phones for entertainment. And often times that website or platform you get on to is not accessible. So it's not actually the device, which is my phone, but it's the platform that you stream things from and it's on your own personal device. So is there discussion of making that accessible?
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: This is Zainab. So this is not specific to the method of delivery, because airlines use a variety of different methods for that. But this is for the in-flight entertainment. Some airlines use the seat back entertainment and others rely on the BYO device concept. So regardless of the method, it's about the content that has to be accessible. And there are some provisions there for the devices in terms of their accessibility, but that's partly on the manufacturers of said devices. Our work looks at the content and ensuring that that is accessible.
So as Claire brought up earlier, when we think about navigation to get to the content, that is a difficult question. But again, we are encouraging trying to make it into a mandate, but at the moment encouraging, that airline companies out there make sure that both the content and the method of provision are accessible and that the provision is also accessible coming from the distributors.
And actually, just let me add, the two bills that Claire mentioned that NAD is working on are also done in collaboration with PVA, who has been leading this where those two bills are concerned. I just want to make sure that's clear to everybody.
DANICA GONZALVES: In the interest of time, we'll take one more question so you can find your way through this maze back to your next room. On the right side?
SPEAKER: Sure. Hi, thanks for the updates and for the presentation. Just a quick question about data collection. I wondered what, if any, of the updates include requirements around data collection and whether that data collection is also including demographics that have to be collected and how those things are phrased so that we can kind of track ways in which there's intersectional discrimination, race and disability together, for example.
DANICA GONZALVES: So right now disability discrimination complaints are released quarterly. Airlines are required to report them quarterly. These reports are online on the DoT's website. And it breaks it down in the disability complaint categories, if it was a wheelchair damage, failure to provide assistance, etc.
There is a completely different complaint for things like racial discrimination, religious discrimination. The intersectionality aspect at the moment is essentially nonexistent. Those are not included in the current proposed bills to look at how those both interplay. We are trying to push for as much as we can right now, with a focus on the things that are impacting the most passengers. That is definitely something we would consider very important, but with the current makeup of Congress, we're just trying to get anything passed that we can. Thank you to everyone who attended today. If you have any more questions, feel free to come up to us, and we can answer them, but I will let everyone else try to find their next room.
[Applause]