This could catch on. Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, a prime Delta hub, just started visual paging for passengers.
Here’s how it works: when the airport’s Information and Paging Office sends out a standard audio page, the kind with which we’re all familiar, the same message scrolls as text across the bottom of MSP’s weather screens.
Those screens are located in the same place as the airport’s flight information displays, where passengers stop to find out about delays, gate assignments and such. The airport also posts these visual pages at the airport’s information booths, and on its website at www.mspairport.com.
Jeffrey Hamiel is executive director of he Metropolitan Airports Commission, which runs Minneapolis/St. Paul. He says the new service “is particularly important to customers who are deaf or hard of hearing.” The airport is partnering with the Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans on to make the effort work.
Gallaudet Research Institute says available federal data and published research indicate anywhere from two to four out of every 1,000 people in the United States are “functionally deaf.” Drill deeper and the magnitude of the issue is clearer. Include people with severe hearing impairment and the number is four to ten times higher: nine to 22 out of every 1,000 folks are severely hearing impaired. Take it one step farther and include everyone who possesses any kind of hearing problem and anywhere from 37 to 140 out of 1,000 people in the nation have some kind of hearing loss. A significant slice of this last group is comprised of those 65 or older.
Story by Jerry Chandler
Photo by coolmikeol
