2013-01-16-Airport Travel
Seminars@Hadley
The Independent Airport Traveler
Presented by
Jay Stiteley
Moderated by
Douglas Walker
January 16, 2013
Douglas Walker
Welcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Douglas Walker and I am an instructor of Assisted Technology here at the Hadley School for the Blind. I will be your moderator for today’s seminar.
Today’s seminar topic is The Independent Airport Traveler. You presenter today is Jay Stiteley. Jay Stiteley, it seems like almost everybody coming into today’s room has met Jay. He’s been everywhere. Jay is currently the Dean of Students at the Tennessee School for the Blind. He’s a member of Delta Airlines Customer Advisory Board on Disabilities, so he is the one to be here talking with us about airport travel, for sure.
It really is great having Jay with us today. I have had the opportunity to listen to Jay speak on airport travel and I know all the wealth of information that Jay has. So every one of you today will learn a lot of really great information and tips and tricks that’s going to make your airport travel so much easier in the future.
So without further delay, I would like to welcome today’s presenter, Jay Stiteley. Jay I’ll hand the microphone over to you.
Jay Stiteley
First of all, thank you all very much for coming today and the Independent Airport Traveler is a workshop that I’ve developed over a series of years just doing 23 years of traveling. I recognize some of the people on here, and when we go into question and answer, you may actually -- I’ve recognized some voices in here that do a fair amount of traveling themselves and if you will have some things that I have missed, or you’ve got tips, I’m definitely open to hearing some.
First of all, it’s the Independent Airport Traveler is the title and I want to be sure people understand that somebody who is a once or twice, or three times a year traveler, odds are they’re not going to want to spend the time it would take to figure out how to travel in an airport. But, somebody who travels routinely, I’ve got a variety of tips and just pieces and parts that make that process of getting through the airport a little more independently. For those people who are that once, twice, three times a year traveler, my suspicion -- Oh, I’m being censored from the background -- I’m in the school and I get the tones in my office, so I apologize for the background noise.
People, it’s important to recognize that you can request certain levels of assistance. I’m sure that many of you have been traveling and you request that assistance and they immediately bring you a wheelchair. First of all, that is -- you are not required to sit in the wheelchair. But there’s some things you can do to minimize that chance of having to fight that battle, as it were.
Part of that starts out with when you make your reservations. Many people oftentimes are reluctant to mention that they are blind or visually impaired or don’t feel that they want to share that information. You really don’t -- but if you want assistance, all you need to share is that you need, that you have a disability and you’d like some assistance. Now, some questions may be asked of you by the airline folks to understand better what services you need.
So, if you want to think about that prior to making your reservation, that’s very helpful. For instance, you may share, okay, I would like some assistance, but really all I need is a sighted person who can walk and talk, and that’s what you request. Or you can use a phrase within the airline industry -- it’s the letters DPNA, and that stands for “disabled person needs assistance.”
If you say DPNA, one, you have implied to them that you have a level of knowledge and therefore they’re going to -- they may step up and listen to you a little closer. But be prepared to explain what it is you are requesting. As I travel, when I travel by myself with my seeing eye dog, I do not request assistance. I just ask for directions from the bell stand person where I drop my bags off, or as I get in, I ask questions as I go through the airport of someone that I hear walking by, that type of thing.
But when I travel with my wife, she’s visually impaired, and my dog and I walk much faster than she does with her cane, or using her remaining vision. And, so we always request assistance. She goes sighted guide with the assistance person and then she gets mobility babble going.
Mobility babble is something that I use in a variety of ways, and you may all use it and did not realize it had a formal name. Mobility babble is where you can talk to somebody and you’re basically cuing off their voice. If you hear them starting to drift further to the right, you realize, okay, maybe they’re making a turn here. I think any number of us have, especially dog guide users where they say, well, you just walk and talk with me, I’ll be able to follow you. Because when you start getting into rights and left then they think they have to direct you to move over to the right side of the hallway because you’re dog tends to walk to the left.
I oftentimes will also stop before we ever start and explain how my dog is going to travel, and each of us know our respective needs of our dog. One of the things my wife has also done, she’s developed a whole repertoire of questions that she asks a person who’s providing assistance. Then I just listen to them and I give my dog the appropriate commands in that process.
What I’ve just described is a process of being proactive and being assertive in a polite way and taking over the process of how we get through the airport. With that as sort of my lead-in, I’m going to kind of back up just a little bit.
The first thing you always do is plan a trip. And something you may want to think about is if you are traveling and by plane you’re going to get there inside of an hour, you might want to think about the fact of either using a bus or train. Because even though your flight’s only an hour, if you’re checking bags you’ve got to be there at least 90 minutes ahead of time. So there’s 90 minutes before the flight ever takes off, and then if the trip is an hour itself providing there’s no glitches there, or a long delay on the taxiway, then you have at least that other 30 minutes to retrieve your bag.
So, you’ve already figured out it is three hours. So, if you can get there by bus or train within three hours, it might be to your advantage, plus it’s also potentially less expensive and, depending on where you need to go to your destination, bus and train stations tend to be more downtown locations where airports tend to be outside the city, then you’ve got to get from the airport to downtown if that’s where you are ultimately going. So, just some thoughts in that area.
Some things to think about with flights. There are three kinds of flights. There’s direct, connecting and non-stop. Direct means that you fly from point A to point B, but they stop at point 1A. You don’t have to get off the plane, but other passengers get off and get on and then they continue on to B. That’s your direct flight.
The connecting flight means that to get from point A to B, you do have to stop at point 1A and get off the plane and then get on another plane that will connect into your city. The non-stop is just clearly you get in the plane, they take off at A and they land at B. That’s always my preferred option because one of the things you think about -- the direct isn’t quite as bad other than it’s add at least a half an hour to your overall plane trip if not an hour.
Connecting flights will definitely add an hour to an overall trip. But it also potentially adds the other process of well, how do I get from this point to the next gate? So that adds that whole other level of learning a new area. Plus, depending on what your comfort zone for flying is, it may add a little extra stress, another take off and landing, so those are all factors that the individual has to think about themselves. All right. So that kind of takes care of point No. 1.
Passenger Rights and Responsibilities. In 1986 the Air Carrier Access Act was developed and this started giving passengers with disabilities certain rights as a traveler. There are situations in which, prior to 1986, airlines exercised the right to give a person with a disability, in particular blind people, a quiz to figure out if they really understood what they were doing. Where they were going, did they have -- well, the Air Carrier Access Act stopped that activity. That indicated that they are no longer able to do that.
It also now guarantees that you get a -- it’s supposed to guarantee that you get a private briefing so that it doesn’t draw added attention to your disability. Most airlines are pretty good about that. Sometimes if a flight is running late the flight attendants may skip that process. They may forget it because though you may have pre-boarded, there are other passengers that are right behind you because the plane was running late and they’re trying to get it back on schedule.
This is where you responsibilities are to step up and make sure you have the information you need, confirm the row that you’re in, confirm that you know where the various exits are. Also, one of the things the Air Carrier Access Act did is, you cannot be required to sit in a specific seat because you have a disability, because you are traveling with a dog guide.
Many, many years ago, there was more space between the front seat and that bulkhead wall that may be separating coach from first class or in front of that first class seat to the first wall up there of the cabin. There used to be much more space and that was a logical place to place somebody with a dog guide. And it’s pure choice whether somebody wants to position their dog under the seat in front of them or if they want to be in a bulkhead seating so they can position their dog there.
You as a passenger, it’s important that you know that you have to speak up and one of the things that you always want to figure out is where is that flight attendant call button. They are usually positioned in the overhead, the ceiling above you, right above your seat. It’s usually on either end of that row, if you find any of the lights or if you find the air flow. It generally comes to the back side of where you have the little fans, and you can feel a strip at the edge of that recessed area. And if you reach all the way to the left end or all the way to the right end, those buttons tend to be raised and those are your call buttons.
A few planes have got sort of those membrane style buttons that you push, so they may be a little trickier to find. As soon as you push a button and you hear a ding, you know you’ve turned on the passenger call light as they refer to it.
You are allowed to pre-board a flight, but you have to go and request it. And if you’re choosing to use assistance, it’s important that you go to the gate, you go up to the counter even with the person who is providing you assistance. Oftentimes they say, oh, well we’ll go let them know that you’re here. I always like to go and make sure that I’ve spoken to that person, get a little sense of their voice, make sure, I mean, use the excuse, oh, could you please check if my frequent flyer number is in, then I get them talking more, I get a chance to have a little bit of conversation with them, I’m going to be more memorable to that person. I also confirm if they’re the one that will be boarding the flight because sometimes, depending on how early you get to a gate, you may have one shift leaving that gate and then there will be another one coming on later, and that’s good information for you to have. “Oh, no, I won’t be boarding this flight, there’ll be somebody else coming to the gate are to do that.” Those are all good pieces of information from your standpoint, because that new person may not realize that you’re in the gate area. Maybe the other person got there late and they’re on their way out, etc., and it was not easy for them to locate the or share all the information in the gate area.
All right. So there’s a lot of different considerations. We’re going to actually get into seating on the airplane a little bit later in the presentation.
How you handle yourself is going to also control, I’m talking now to the passenger with a visual impairment. How you handle yourself is going to make a major difference of how you’re responded to, and I think a lot of us who have done some traveling realize that no matter how frustrating your travel experience has been, when you get to the gate being frustrated with that person is not going to get you anything. It’s only going to create more frustration. You may have to step back, get yourself calmed down; but the more friendly you are and understanding, especially if flights are late and that type of thing, the more understanding you are of the problems that gate agent is having, the more they’re going to be willing to work with you.
It was real interesting. I’ll just share one experience. A flight got cancelled and they sent us over to the Information Center. This gentleman was in front of me and he was just irate with them, “What do mean cancelled the flight? It’s a beautiful day out there! What’s wrong?! Can’t you guys keep your planes fixed…” all sorts of stuff like that. You could tell the gate was just doing what they had to do with this individual and were very frustrated with his behavior toward them. When I stepped up to the counter I waited a few moments, made sure that they had a few moments, I said, “Just let me know when you’re ready to talk to me,” and they said, “Okay, thank you.” And the other gentleman, they couldn’t find a seat for. His flight was going to get delayed and it turned out we were obviously going to the same city. He ended up on a flight about 4 hours later. I was very polite, talked with the lady, tried to demonstrate understanding. I was out on the next flight which was only a 2-hour delay. Sometimes they have a little control as to how helpful they are, but the more understanding you are as a passenger, it tends to allow your process and allow you to maybe move up in the process. I think it’s those who work well are considerate of others, get the assistance first.