Academy Award-winner Marlee Matlin has called out Delta Air Lines, saying the carrier has made no accommodations for deaf and hard-of-hearing fliers on its flights.
The actress, who is deaf and is an advocate for the deaf and hearing impaired, took out her frustrations with a tweet noting the airline’s lack of closed captioning on its in-flight entertainment system.
Sad to see that my preferred airline, @Delta flight 1998 has provisions for various languages and audio description for in-flight entertainment but no closed captions for deaf and hard of hearing flyers. #noaccess #stillwaiting for #ADAcompliance pic.twitter.com/CXnmqbHSDB
— Marlee Matlin (@MarleeMatlin) December 26, 2019
Some 46,000 people liked the Tweet, and Delta responded with a tweet of its own and a statement to USA TODAY, saying that although most of their aircraft with seatback screens “have a wide variety of closed captioned content, unfortunately, Ms. Matlin’s flight has not yet been upgraded to include this feature. Accessibility is important to us (and) we apologize and are working diligently to upgrade our remaining fleet.”
Delta also tweeted a reply to Marlin noting that “As an alternative option, you can access closed-captioned Delta Studio content via Gogo Entertainment app on your personal electronic device.”
But Matlin was not satisfied with the answer and replied back to the airline.
But why is audio description a feature of accessibility available but not captioning? And how would I have known that?? https://t.co/r0ikljspQ5
— Marlee Matlin (@MarleeMatlin) December 26, 2019
Delta did not respond to that tweet from Matlin.
