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Disability Travel / TSA / Airport Security / Full-Body Scanning / Accessible Travel / Enhanced Pat-Downs / Airports / Airport News / Technology / Naked Travel / Travel News / → All Tags

How Do Full-Body Scanners and Pat-Downs Work if You're Disabled?

Steel yourself for a dose of indignity if you have a disability and the audacity to travel by airplane.

The new TSA regulations for disabled travelers—exposure to radiation and ridicule, or a public groping and in-depth interrogation on exactly how your catheter works—are almost as ludicrous as US Airways throwing a frequent flier off the plane for being too disabled to fly.

Most people with spinal cord injuries have been blasted with enough radiation to last a lifetime, thank you very much. In any case, if you can’t walk unaided and raise your hands above your head for seven seconds you’ve no choice; it’s a groping session or you stay at home, thanks to TSA regulations.

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Pet Travel / Airports / Airport News / Animals / Disability Travel / JFK / PHX / ATL / → All Tags

Dogs Finally Have a Place To Conduct Their Business at Airports

Jet-setting pups just got some good news, and this time we don't mean Pet Airways. Dog parks are being set up at airports all over the country. A new mandate by the Department of Transportation requires airlines to set up relief areas for Seeing Eye Dogs and other service animals. Since the mandate went into effect last year, airlines have been working to either add or upgrade dog parks at airports across the U.S.

One such airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport recently opened a 1,000-square-foot dog park on the south end of the ground transportation center. While another, JFK in NYC, has a patch of natural grass (complete with its own fire hydrant) that was installed by American Airlines.

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Disability Travel / Travel Tips / In-Flight Entertainment / → All Tags

Jaunted's Guide to Flying for the Hearing-Impaired

We've geeked out over the airlines in-flight entertainment offerings and the status of in-flight WiFi enough here on Jaunted but we've recently realized that these technological advancements still leave a certain group out of the loop--the hearing impaired.

You may take for granted that you can watch movies (whether you paid $8 for them on your seatback or if it's playing overhead) but in fact, most in-flight entertainment offerings don't even offer closed captioning.

And while some Southwest flight attendants get creative with their boarding announcements, there's no sign language interpreter for the hearing impaired. This is probably fine when it comes to rapping flight attendants but what happens when there's an emergency?

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 37 million adults of all ages in the United States reported some degree of hearing loss in 2006. This includes a range of impairments, from those having problems hearing to those who are completely deaf.

So we thought we'd look at how airlines are accommodating these kinds of travelers.

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