14 CFR Part 382 Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel (Air Carrier Access Act): Preamble and Section-by-Section Analysis (with amendments issued through July 2010)

382.69 What requirements must carriers meet concerning the accessibility of videos, DVDs, and other audio-visual presentations shown on aircraft to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing? This section requires carriers to ensure that all new videos, DVDs, and other audio-visual displays played on aircraft for safety purposes, and all such audio-visual displays played on aircraft for informational purposes that were created under the carrier’s control, are high-contrast captioned. The captioning must be in the predominant language or languages in which the carrier communicates with passengers on the flight. If the carrier communicates regularly in more than one language (e.g., French and English on a Canadian air carrier), then the captioning must be in all of those languages. By saying that this section applies to “new” videos, we mean that carriers are not required to retrofit or replace existing videos.

For purposes of this section, we view a video as being controlled by a carrier not only if the carrier directly produces it, but if a contractor or other party produces the video for the carrier’s use, with the carrier having significant editorial control or approval of the video’s content. Note that the provision about carrier control of a video applies only to informational materials. Safety materials must be captioned in all cases.

The requirements of this section go into effect 180 days after the effective date of the rule with respect to safety videos, and 240 days after the effective date of the rule with respect to informational videos. This timing is the same for both U.S. and foreign carriers. The corresponding section of the current version of Part 382 permits carriers to use a non-video alternative only if neither open captioning nor a sign language interpreter inset can be used without so interfering with the video as to render it ineffective. This exception is not included in the new rule. The overall effective date of the rule is one year after the rule is published, but, as indicated above, carriers are not required to implement the provision concerning videos in the new rule until 180 to 240 days after that overall effective date. Consequently, starting on the overall effective date (i.e., one year after the rule is published) there would be no requirement in effect on this subject for U.S. carriers. In order to avoid such a situation, as a bridge between the current Part 382 and the new Part 382 U.S. carriers are required to comply with a requirement identical to the current rule’s provision on safety videos between the effective date of the new rule and 180 days after that date.