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)

TTY Use

We proposed in the DHH NPRM to require carriers to ensure that the service and response times are equal for TTY information and reservation lines and non-TTY information and reservation lines, including the provision of a queue for the former if one is provided for the latter. (Since 1990, U.S. carriers that offer telephone reservations and information service to the general public have been required by §382.47 to offer TTY service as well.) TTY users should not be subject to longer wait times than other callers. We stated our belief that the cost to carriers of installing queuing features on their TTY lines would not be high. We solicited comments on this proposal.

The individuals and disability organizations that commented on this issue mostly supported all of our proposals. The carriers and carrier associations that filed comments expressed strong reservations about our proposal. Some foreign carriers opposed TTY requirements on the grounds that TTY access is technically infeasible in many countries. Some opposed the requirement of a queuing system for TTY calls, claiming that such systems are in fact quite costly and that the expense is not justified given the low incidence and low frequency of TTY calls that they receive (i.e., no more than two to three calls per month). Some asserted that deaf and hard of hearing consumers are using the internet more and more to communicate with carriers and thus relying less and less on TTYs. Some opposed the requirement that response time for TTY users and other callers be “equivalent,” arguing that the delay inherent in typing text rather than speaking it makes equivalent response times physically impossible.

The purpose of §382.43 is to put deaf and hard of hearing passengers on a substantially equivalent footing with the rest of the public in their ability to communicate with carriers by telephone regarding information and reservations. We aim to ensure substantial equivalence in both access to any carrier and wait time if an agent is not available when a connection is first made.

Regarding access, both the comments and our own further investigations into voice relay services have persuaded us that we need not require carriers to make TTY service available per se. Instead, we are requiring only that carriers make their telephone reservation and information services available to individuals who use a TTY. Carriers may of course meet this requirement by using TTYs themselves, but they may also do so by means of voice relay or any other available technology that permits TTY users to communicate with them. This requirement is set forth in §382.43(a). We are also adding a new access requirement in §382.43(a)(4) to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing passengers are informed of how to reach carriers by TTY: in any medium in which a carrier states the telephone number of its information and reservation service for the general public, it must also state its TTY number if it has one, or if not, it must specify how TTY users can reach the information and reservation service (e.g., via voice relay service). Such media include, for example, web sites, ticket jackets, telephone books, and print advertisements.

Regarding wait time, the comments and our own experiments with voice relay systems have persuaded us not to require carriers that use TTYs to implement a queuing system for TTY calls even if they do maintain one for calls from the rest of the public. Calls from a TTY to a carrier via a voice relay service are treated exactly the same as calls from conventional telephones. If an agent is available to take the call, the caller is connected to the agent. If not, if the carrier has a queuing system the call goes into the queue along with non-TTY calls. (If the carrier does not have a queuing system, any caller gets a busy signal.) Therefore, a TTY caller who calls the carrier’s TTY number and gets a busy signal can hang up and immediately try the carrier’s general public number through a voice relay service, where all calls receive identical treatment. We consider the timing in this scenario to be “substantially equivalent” to the timing for the rest of the public, the extra call notwithstanding. We do not intend for “substantially equivalent” to mean “exactly the same.” As long as disparities in wait times between TTY users and the general public remain both low and infrequent, we will consider the treatment of these groups to be substantially equivalent. Of course, we can and will investigate allegations of routine or lengthy disparities and require corrective action where appropriate.

We are concerned, moreover, that given the reportedly high cost of implementing a TTY queuing service vis-à-vis the reportedly low incidence of TTY calls, if we required queuing systems for TTYs, carriers that currently maintain TTYs might have an incentive to discontinue them, as this rule will permit them to do, and opt instead to offer access to TTY callers only via voice relay. We do not wish to create disincentives that may deprive those TTY users who may prefer calling another TTY directly rather than using voice relay of this option, especially when the record in this proceeding contains no evidence that the incidence of busy signals in TTY-to-TTY calls is high or even moderate. We would expect any carrier that operates TTY service and whose TTY callers experience a high incidence of busy signals to find some way of accommodating the TTY callers so as to avoid violating the “substantially equivalent” standard. For example, rather than acquire and maintain a queuing system, the carrier could allow a TTY caller who cannot be accommodated immediately to leave a message and then have an agent promptly return the call.