Upcoming Rule: Closed Captions Will Be Required for In-flight Entertainment
Historic Captioning Agreement Requires Closed Captions for In-flight Entertainment on US Airlines
After negotiations between members of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Advisory Committee on Accessible Air Transportation (ACCESS Advisory Committee), including the National Association of the Deaf, closed captions will be required for in-flight entertainment, along with other accessibility provisions.
The ACCESS Advisory committee consists of disability advocacy organizations, airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and content providers. During a 7-month negotiation process, the committee worked to address accessible in-flight entertainment and communications, accessible lavatories, and service animals.
The landmark agreement establishes that the same in-flight entertainment options that are available to all passengers will also be accessible to deaf, hard of hearing, blind, and visually impaired passengers.
This means that closed captions will be required for in-flight entertainment, just as they are required for television, movie theaters, and online videos that have been previously shown on TV with captions.
Closed captions are the visual text display of the audio portion of a video. They can be turned on or off by the user and are in the same language as the medium, rather than a translation to [...]