An Address Delivered by Kenneth Jernigan At the Convention of the National Federation of the Blind
Phoenix, Arizona
Thursday, July 2, 1987
Sometimes it seems as if the airline hassle has been with the blind forever, but this is not the case. Prior to the 1970's blind people almost never experienced problems in air travel. We bought our tickets, went to the airport, boarded the plane, traveled to our destination, got off, and went about our business just like everybody else. If one of us wanted help in boarding a plane or making a connection, the assistance was requested and given without a thought.
Then, -something happened. Ironically it was caused by the increasing emphasis on affirmative action for the handicapped. One would have thought this would have been a positive step, but it wasn't--at least, not for the blind. Airline personnel did not become knowledgeable overnight or lose their prejudices just because somebody
told them to engage in affirmative action. Mostly (with respect to air travel) the blind didn't need any affirmative action. We were doing fine just as it was. But the airlines were into affirmative action, so they had to think up something to do to help us--whether we needed it or not and, for that matter, whether we wanted it or not.
They began by lumping all of what they perceived to be the handicapped together--wheelchair users, the blind, the deaf, the quadriplegic, the cerebral palsied, and everybody else they could think of--including, very often, small children. Next they cataloged what they believed to be the problems, needs, and characteristics of each of these groups and then assumed that each item on the list applied to every member of every group they had included in the category of the handicapped. The resulting mythical composite was a monstrosity--totally helpless, totally in need of custody, and totally nonexistent except in the minds of the airline officials. There is not now (nor was there ever) any such person as the "airlines standardized handicapped air traveler," and the problem comes from the fact that the airlines (and, to some extent, the federal regulators) persist in acting as if there is.
In the mid-1970's there was talk of limiting the number of handicapped people who could ride on the same plane at the same time--and whether it made sense for anybody at all, it certainly didn't for the blind. Nevertheless, just because we were perceived as part of the "handicapped," we were caught in the net and included. By a good deal of rather strong persuasion we got that one stopped. Then, a short time later, there was the question of whether we could keep our canes with us at our seats. This time it took a court case, a series of angry confrontations, a few arrests, a lot of publicity, and a sizable amount of Congressional pressure--but ultimately (with some notable exceptions, which still continue on a sporadic basis) we mostly got that one stopped, too.
The problem was always the same. We were not individuals; we were not ordinary passengers, with the normal range of abilities and differences--we were "the handicapped." Air travel (which had once been a pleasant experience) rapidly came to be an ordeal; and as the confrontations continued, both airline personnel and the blind began to be sensitized and braced for trouble.
By the mid-1980's the blind were engaged in allout war with the airlines, and although there has been measurable progress, that is where we still are today. Examples of occurrences during a two-month period in 1985 will make the point.
FALSE REASON GIVEN
Dr. Charles Hallenbeck is a tenured professor at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. On Monday, May 13, 1985, he had occasion to fly on American Airlines. As he said in a letter to an airline official, "My colleague, Professor Margaret Schadler, and I were returning from a professional trip aboard American flight 47 from Newark to Chicago, changing there to American flight 119 to Kansas City. I am a blind person and travel with a dog guide. Professor Schadler is a sighted person.
"The actions of personnel aboard flight 47:
1. prevented me from maintaining a pre-assigned
seat adjacent to that of Professor Schadler;
2. required me, after being comfortably seated, to abandon my pre-assigned seat and move to a bulkhead seat for a patently false reason;
3. required a sighted passenger to abandon his seat in the bulkhead area so that I might be required to sit there;
4. required the other passenger to move to the seat with Professor Schadler which I was required to relinquish;
5. compensated the stranger, whom Professor Schadler later described as a less than sober cargo pilot, who insisted on conversation,' with two free drinks, courtesy of American Airlines, while making no similar gesture to me; and
6. required my dog guide to move from an ordinary seat (row 15), where floor space was generous due to the availability of storage area beneath the seat ahead and to move to the bulkhead area, where floor space is limited due to the absence of such storage area. The pretext for requiring us to move was 'for the dog's comfort.' When I pointed out the more ample space and increased comfort which my dog enjoyed in our pre-assigned seat in row 15, the flight attendant shifted to another reason, which was that'we have our rules."'
On the flight from Chicago to Kansas City Professor Hallenbeck was allowed to travel in peace in a seat next to Professor Schadler. The constancy and severity of abuse to which blind air travelers are being subjected can be seen in Professor Hallenbeck's assertion upon leaving the plane in Kansas City that: "I felt irrationally grateful when the flight was over, grateful for the simple courtesy of having been treated like anyone else."
STRIP-SEARCHED
Early in July of 1985 Steve and Nadine Jacobson were traveling on a United Airlines flight. Knowing of the senseless abuse and humiliation to which blind passengers seated in exit rows had been subjected, they specifically asked not to be assigned to exit row seats. Nevertheless, they were assigned to exit row seats and then publicly embarrassed by being rudely and loudly ordered to move. When they felt that this was too much and refused to comply, they were arrested, bodily hauled off the plane, physically injured, taken to jail, strip-searched, and confined to a cell--and all in the name of safety.
READ OR PASS QUIZ
When Peggy Pinder was traveling on an Ozark flight in July of 1985, she was treated in a manner which could hardly be believed if it were not irrefutably documented. Here is how she tells it:
"Some time ago, Ozark transcribed into Braille the printed safety cards placed in the seat pockets for sighted passengers. I read one once, and it contained information I already possessed about safety on Ozark planes.
"On this particular day I boarded without incident. After the plane was in the air and the seat belt sign had been turned off, a flight attendant (later identified as Kay) came to my seat and stated she had a safety booklet that I was to read. I replied that I was a regular flier with Ozark and familiar with the material in the booklet. Kay replied that I was to take the booklet and read it anyway. I said that Kay had done her job by bringing the booklet to me and that she was not responsible for making me read it. Kay then said that if I would not read the booklet in her presence, I must answer to her satisfaction a quiz concerning the safety features of the plane. At this stage I had had enough and refused."
During the remainder of that flight Peggy Pinder was threatened and victimized. She was falsely told that there was an FAA man on board and that if she would not read the booklet, she would be reported and fined. She was told that she would not be allowed to board her connecting flight unless she would read the booklet or pass the quiz. She was repeatedly insulted and badgered until the plane landed, and she was then pursued off the plane by the flight attendant, who still wanted her to read the booklet. Insanity? Of course--but it happened, and airline officials later admitted that it happened and disciplined Kay.
If this were an isolated instance, it could be chalked up to madness and forgotten, but it isn't. Considering the public statements and the everyday behavior of the airlines, it is exactly what can be predicted from airline cabin and ground personnel. They engage in their bullying and mistreatment of blind passengers in the name of safety, but this does not excuse what they do or make it safety-related. A thing is not necessarily what it is called.
During the past two years blind people have been ordered to pre-board, post-board, prove that they can fasten or unfasten their seat belts, and sit on blankets so that the seat will not be soaked or fouled in case they cannot make it to the bathroom. Attempts have been made by airline personnel to take children from their blind parents as they walked together from the plane, and efforts have been made to confiscate the tickets of blind passengers to force them to sit in a special "holding room" in Chicago to wait for a connecting flight, which might be hours late. Above all, blind people have been told that they cannot sit in exit rows.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which is charged by law with making rules for airline safety, is well aware of the exit row argument. Yet, they have made no rule prohibiting blind persons from sitting in exit row seats. They have gone farther. I have personally heard FAA officials say that they do not believe the exit row seating question has anything to do with safety. Then, why do the airlines do it?
Their actions probably result from a combination of factors. In the first place they have the standard misconceptions and false notions about blindness. To put it in its simplest form, they believe that a blind person is just about as capable and can do just about as much as they could do if they were to close their eyes--which is, of course, complete nonsense. It is about as reasonable as saying that the average member of the public can determine what a pilot can do by going into the cockpit of a modern jet plane and beginning to flip switches. Also, the airlines have been under pressure to prove that air travel is safe, and one way to make a visible demonstration is by showing that they have done something tangible--like telling blind people they can't sit in exit rows. After all, it doesn't cost anything, and in relation to the total traveling public there aren't many blind people flying. In other words they think they can do it and get away with it.
I am not suggesting that airline officials are bad people--only that they are human people. Whatever else may be said about their policies, they are certainly not based on safety. Since the question of whether blind people can sit in exit rows is at the heart of many of the recent confrontations, let us examine it. I have held conversations with top officials of United, American, and several other large airlines. I have said to them that if safety is their prime concern, perhaps they should refuse to let anybody fly. That way there would be absolutely no risk that anyone would ever be hurt in an air accident. But, of course, this is not acceptable (not to the airlines, and not to anybody else), because there is a need for people to get from one place to another; so a certain amount of risk must be taken.
Then, since we are going to fly, perhaps the airlines should refuse to let anybody sit in exit rows except strong, vigorous, trained airline personnel. This would maximize the likelihood of the safe evacuation of the plane in case of emergency--but this, too, is unacceptable to the airlines. It would cost too much. Therefore, not only the need to travel but also economic considerations enter the picture.
ALCOHOL ABUSE
Very well, I have said, if the planes are going to operate and if (despite reduced safety) trained personnel cannot be seated in the exit rows, perhaps it would be sensible not to serve liquor to anyone sitting there--but even this the airlines refuse to consider. They say that the flying public would not like it. So we are not only dealing with the need to travel and with airline economics but also with people's feelings--everybody's, that is, except those of the blind. I have even suggested that the airlines might ask for volunteers who do not intend to drink to sit in the exit row; but this, too, they find unacceptable. They say that it would make the passengers uneasy and would be inconvenient. Yet, they are perfectly willing to inconvenience blind people to the point of public abuse, arrest, strip-search, and jail.
The airlines are probably the nation's biggest bartender. Despite their claims to the contrary, they knowingly and repeatedly (in order to make money) serve liquor to airline passengers to the point of making them drunk. Here is a case where they are not only not concerned with safety but are themselves deliberately and premeditatedly violating it by making passengers less safe and less capable in the event of an emergency than they would otherwise have been. Many states have dram shop laws, which say that the person who sells you the liquor is responsible for accidents or damages resulting from your conduct. Why should the airlines not be held to the same standard--not only while passengers are on the plane but also after they leave the airport and are driving in city traffic? It is because no one has brought it to the attention of the public and challenged them. We have not sought confrontation with the airlines, but apparently we must either accept custodial treatment and second-class status or fight a war. We are not prepared to have the one, so obviously we must have the other. Very well. So be it. We will try to acquit ourselves with credit.
I have a strategy to suggest to you concerning the liquor question. I call on every state affiliate, every local chapter, and every member of this organization to ask all of the sighted persons you know who are planning to fly to make careful and detailed notes from the time they board the plane until the time they leave it. Let them count the number of drinks sold to passengers--all passengers, but especially those in exit rows. Let them observe who is drunk and still being served liquor. Let them introduce themselves to drunk passengers and learn their names, not indicating the purpose. After the flight, let them continue
to be on guard. If they hear of an accident, let them try to learn whether it involved a passenger who was on the plane. Let them put their notes into affidavit form, and let us collect such a detailed mass of evidence that it cannot be denied or refuted. Let the nation's biggest bartender prepare to meet us in the war which we never sought and never wanted but which we intend to win.
RULING BY ATTORNEY GENERAL
On April 14 of this year Mary Ellen Reihing (President of the Baltimore Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland) went to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport to talk with airport officials. Miss Reihing told these officials of the problems blind people have been having in air travel and reminded them of the state's White Cane Law, which specifically prohibits discrimination against the blind in travel. She suggested that it was inappropriate for the police to comply with airline requests to remove blind passengers from airplanes because of their refusal to move from exit row seats. She pointed out that under Maryland law (a law which applies at the airport as well as anywhere else) the right of the blind to equal treatment in travel must be protected. As evidenced by the following document, the officials agreed:
Offices of the Attorney General;
Department of Transportation;
State Aviation Administration;
Baltimore / Washington International
Airport
MEMORANDUM TO: Wilfred A. Jackson, Manager, BWI Airport; and Cpt. Robert Graham, Commander Maryland State Police, Airport Division.
FROM: Peter W. Taliaferro, Assistant Attorney General
SUBJECT: Seating rights of blind people on air carrier/aircraft
DATE: April 14, 1987
The National Center for the Blind is located in Baltimore. Consequently, BWI Airport accommodates a higher proportion of blind travelers than most other airports. In dealing with air carriers at BWI, the following points may be of value:
There is no federal or state statutory or regulatory law that compels air carriers to seat blind people in any particular fashion on aircraft. For example, there is no law barring blind people from sitting in seats near aircraft exits.
There are federal and state statutes barring discrimination against blind, and other handicapped people in the provision of air transportation. Section 404(c) of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 as amended October 3, 1986, by Public Law 99-435 (49 U.S.C. Section 1374 (c)(1)) provides in part, "no air carrier may discriminate against any otherwise qualified handicapped individual, by reason of such handicap, in the provision of air transportation." Article 30, Section 33(d)(1) of the Annotated Code of Maryland provides in part:
"The blind or visually handicapped are entitled to full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of all common carriers, [including]... airplanes. . ., or other public conveyances or modes of transportation.. .subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable to all persons."
As soon as we received this memorandum in the National Federation of the Blind Office, we made multiple copies of it and began distributing them to blind persons traveling from BWI Airport. The value of this practice was not long in being demonstrated, as witness the following declaration prepared by Sharon Gold, President of the National Federation of the Blind of California:
1. My name is Sharon Gold.
2. I live in Sacramento, California.
3. On April 26, 1987, I was a passenger aboard American Airlines flight #885 traveling from Baltimore to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on my way home to Sacramento.
4. During my stay in Baltimore I met with Michael Baillif of California, who also happened to be returning home via American Airlines flight #885.
5. Mr. Baillif and I are legally blind, and at all times we each carry and use a long white cane.
6. At the airport and prior to the boarding of flight #885, Mr. Baillif and I approached the American Airlines ticket counter and requested a change in seat assignment so that we could be seated together during the flight. The ticket agent advised us that the flight was full and that we would have to keep our assigned seats of 9B, for me, and 18-A, for Mr. Baillif, unless the gate agent would have more up-to-date information.
7. Mr. Baillif and I proceeded to Gate D-3, where we approached the gate agent and once again inquired as to the availability of adjacent seats. The gate agent advised us that we would have to keep our assigned seats unless we could find passengers onboard the aircraft who were willing to trade seats with us.
8. Mr. Baillif and I boarded the plane and took our assigned seats.
9. Mr. Baillif learned that the gentleman assigned to seat 18-B was traveling alone and that this gentleman was willing to trade seats with me so that Mr. Baillif and I could sit together. The gentleman came to my seat and advised me of his willingness to change seats. I gave the gentleman my assigned seat, seat 9-B, and took his assigned seat, seat 18B.
10. After I had occupied seat 18-B and before the flight left, a ground agent approached row 18 and advised Mr. Baillif and me that we were seated in an emergency exit row and that we would have to move because we were in violation of an FAA Regulation.
11. I explained that there was no FAA Regulation prohibiting the seating of blind persons in an emergency exit row, and I handed the agent a card on which is reprinted the current law relevant to the carriage of the blind and disabled by air carriers and, on the reverse side, a statement by Elizabeth Dole, Secretary of Transportation, issued to airlines prohibiting them from asserting FAA Regulations where none exist.
12. In addition to the card, I gave the gate agent a copy of an April 14, 1987, memorandum from Peter W. Taliaferro, Assistant Attorney General and Counsel to the State Aviation Administration for the State of Maryland, written to Wilfred A. Jackson, Manager of the BaltimoreWashington International Airport and Captain Robert Graham, Commander of the Airport Division of the Maryland State Police.
13. The ground agent left row 18 and walked toward the front of the airplane. The flight left almost immediately thereafter.
14. Approximately three-quarters of the way through the flight, a flight attendant approached row 18 and said that the captain of the airplane wanted to know if I had an additional copy of the document which I had given to the ground agent. I gave the flight attendant the requested copy.
15. Sometime later (when we were beginning to descend for landing at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport) a different flight attendant approached row 18 and said that the captain of the aircraft wanted to see me when we were on the ground. With a condescending tone, this flight attendant accused me of moving from seat 9-B to seat 18-B "for your little case."
16. A gentleman sitting in seat 17-A began questioning the flight attendant as to the qualifications of sighted persons who sit in the emergency exit row. He asked the flight attendant what made her believe that sighted persons knew how to get the emergency windows open.
17. When Mr. Baillif and I deplaned, we were met by a ground agent, who was reading the document which the flight attendant had requested for the captain.
18. The captain then approached us and identified himself. The captain had with him an American Airlines Flight Manual from which he read Part I, Section 13, page 1, Paragraph 4c. This citation advises that it is an American Airlines rule that blind persons are not to sit in the emergency exit row or in the row immediately in front of or immediately behind the emergency exit row.
19. The captain claimed that paragraph 4-c was an FAA Regulation. The captain further claimed that if an FAA agent were onboard the aircraft and found him in violation of the regulation, the FAA would fine him $1000.00 per person in violation of the rule, and in this case $2000.00.
20. I asked the captain for a copy of Part I, Section 13, page 1, Paragraph 4-c of the American Airlines Flight Manual, and he declined to give it to me because he said it is "copyrighted" and he "would get into trouble."
21. The captain and I discussed the difference between FAA Regulations and American Airlines Flight Rules, which are merely filed with the FAA and are not FAA Regulations. After some conversation, the captain acknowledged that Part I, Section 13, page 1, Paragraph 4-c is an American Airlines Flight Rule and is not an FAA Regulation. He continued to assert, however, that the FAA would fine him $1000.00 per person if he was caught in violation of this rule.
22. Mr. Baillif and I had a discussion with the captain concerning the whole issue of blind persons being seated in the emergency exit row. At first, the captain tried to say that as blind persons we would be a hazard to ourselves in an emergency because we surely would be trampled by the other 148 passengers aboard the aircraft, if there was in fact an emergency evacuation. Almost before concluding this statement, the captain seemed to realize the ridiculousness of it. After all, Mr. Baillif and I had just vacated the plane independently and as quickly as other passengers. We discussed with the captain that, if an emergency occurred at night and the cabin was dark or the occurrence of the emergency caused a smoke-filled cabin, a blind person unaccustomed to seeing could be at a greater advantage than a sighted person. We pointed out to the captain that airline personnel can not discern the hidden characteristics of passengers--such as who will panic in an emergency, who has a bad heart, or who has some unrecognizable medical condition which might be the cause of extreme illness or sudden death from the fright caused by the emer gency. By the time we concluded our discussion, I believe that we had pretty well dispelled the captain's reservations about blind persons sitting in the exit row--at least for that day and, hopefully, for future flights.
This is Sharon Gold's declaration, and if we consider the entire sequence of events leading up to it, the implications are quite instructive. The local president of the National Federation of the Blind had talked with the airport manager and the Attorney General's office and had got a ruling. We had given a copy of that ruling to two blind air travelers. When they refused to move from their assigned seats, airline personnel (who would customarily have had them arrested) were stymied. The plane took off, and they remained in their seats. Ordinarily there would have been a long delay, public abuse and humiliation, and possibly a trip to jail.
BIGGEST BARTENDER AND BULLY
As I have said, the airlines are probably the nation's biggest bartender. They are also perhaps the nation's biggest and most cowardly bully. I have a second strategy to suggest to you. Let us begin to strip the nation's biggest bully of some of his police backing and then see how he fares.
We have made a thousand copies of the Maryland Attorney General's ruling. I suggest that every state and local affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind move quickly and firmly to set up meetings with every state attorney general in the nation and the manager of every airport. Show them the Maryland ruling, and remind them that their state has a white cane law, which has the same provisions that the Maryland law has. Get a ruling from your attorney general. Get an agreement from your airport manager. Once you get the ruling, make many copies of it, and see that every blind person who flies has one in his or her pocket.
Remember that the nation's biggest bartender and bully will know what we are doing and deploy his forces with what speed he can muster to try to block us. We must get there first and cut him off. We will not be successful in every attorney general's office or at every airport, but neither will the airlines; and we will begin to cut their support from under them on the ground. If, as at BWI, the police refuse to help them, the only alternative they will have will be to fly and deal with us in the air or on the ground at our destination-unless, of course, we have cut them off there, too. In the air (although it will be unpleasant) we can hold our own quite handily. As I have already said, this is not a war which we have wanted or sought; but since we are forced to fight it, we will do it with vigor, imagination, and relentless determination.
At present, as you know, a regulatory negotiation (in federal parlance a "reg neg") is underway. In my opinion (although the nation's biggest bartender and bully would probably deny it) this reg neg would never have occurred if it had not been for the airlines' mistreatment of the blind and our response. Since early June we have been meeting to negotiate the promulgation of new federal airline regulations. The Department of Transportation, the FAA, the airlines, other disability groups, and the blind are particiating. At the beginning of the reg neg meetings, I told all those present that we would negotiate in good faith (as we certainly will) but that we would not in the meantime cease pursuing other initiatives and avenues of solution. We will continue to seek help from Congress; we will keep up our contacts with the media; we will go forward with our campaign of informing the public; and we will always stand ready to reach any reasonable understanding with the airlines. We will also pursue our new initiatives of documenting airline liquor abuses, getting rulings from state and local law officials, and thinking up every other means we can of bringing the abuse of blind people to an end. It is not a game we are playing, and just as the blacks could not compromise on the question of sitting at the back of the bus, neither can we compromise on sitting in the exit row.
What we want is simple. We want to pay for our tickets and travel in peace like everybody else. We are not a greater risk than others who ride the planes, and we are not willing to be treated as if we were.
To the airlines we say this: "First you tried to custodialize us and treat us like small children. When (regardless of how courteously) we declined to accept such treatment, you resented us and tried to force us. In recent months you have (on more than one occasion) jeopardized our safety, and the safety of those around us, by publicly inciting other passengers to violence against us--and you have done this in the name of promoting the very safety you have jeopardized. You have humiliated us, prevented us from flying, and caused us to be arrested and sometimes put into jail. We have been long- suffering and patient, but there comes a time when patience ceases to be a virtue and long-suffering meekness becomes cowardice. If you continue to make war on us, we will stand forth to meet you with all the force we can muster. We want no strife or confrontation, but we will do what we have to do. We are simply no longer willing to be second-class citizens.
If You Want To Help Contact the:
National Federation of the Blind
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
(301) 659-9314