Gogo is to provide closed captioning on all of its in-flight streaming content.
Deaf and hard of hearing airline passengers will soon have closed captioned, on-demand in-flight entertainment videos.
The National Association of the Deaf (NAD), a non-profit civil rights organization of, by, and for deaf and hard of hearing individuals, and Gogo have reached an agreement for Gogo to make closed captioning available for 100 percent of programming content sourced by Gogo and streamed through its on-demand in-flight entertainment service, Gogo Vision.
This is the first agreement of its kind with an in-flight entertainment company, and is the result of the parties’ mutual intent to increase access for passengers who are deaf and hard of hearing to movies and television that are viewed in flight on U.S. domestic flights.
Passengers using their own personal Wi-Fi enabled devices can access a Gogo Vision server located on aircraft of certain airlines that contain an extensive library of movies and television shows.
Under the agreement, Gogo has now added technology that will enable passengers to have the option to display closed captions for content with closed captions sourced by Gogo; Gogo has also begun sourcing new content with closed captions where available; and Gogo will replace all of its existing sourced content with content that has closed captions through a phase-in process that will be completed by June 30, 2017. All captions will be consistent with Federal Communications Commission standards for completeness, accuracy, synchronicity, and placement.
Ash ElDifrawi, Gogo’s chief commercial officer:
“We are excited to work with NAD to offer Gogo Vision’s entire library of movies and TV sourced by Gogo to passengers who are deaf and hard of hearing. Watching movies on a passenger’s own device has become a very popular product for Gogo and we are excited to provide access to this product to the deaf and hard of hearing.”
N.B. Image credit: gogoair.com
