[Ohio-talk] An open letter to blind airport travelers

[David Cohen]

Dear Blind Travelers of  Airports Who Speak The Same Complaints About
Airport Practices For The Last 25 Years,

One way to avoid being presented with a wheelchair experience is to
arrive with a guide dog or a fully-dressed mannequin under your arm.
Maybe stop making such a big deal about wheelchairs and remember that
many members of the federation live their lives in wheelchairs.  Maybe
such members dislike the negative sentiment expressed about
wheelchairs?  Maybe they think you are being unfair and discriminatory
about people who use wheelchairs?

Here’s some suggestions I have based on my own experience traveling in
airports both with a guide dog and with a cane.

1. Travel as light as possible.  Take a suitcase that you can
roll/pull behind you.  Use a book bag or backpack.

2. No matter where you get dropped off listen to the other travelers
around you.  Listen for their projected directional sound and listen
for doors opening or revolving.  Listen for the ritualistic
conversation of airport employees.  “Hi folks… Where you going today?”
 Approach this person and take control of your situation. In short,
pay attention.

3. When you get inside stop and lift the cover of your Braille watch
or pull out your compact and make like you’re involved and listen
again to what is around you.  Throw your smartphone in the nearest
waste can.  Listen to the movement of the majority of people.  People
are followers of routine and creatures of habit just ask your dog and
cat.  Listen to those coming in the same doors behind you and turn and
ask one such person who is probably also just arriving to give you the
general direction of the check-in area.  Now listen in that direction.

3.5 Don’t let someone give you specific directions.  Use your arm or
hand to signal the general direction if someone speaks the language of
“there,” or “to your left… I mean my left… Oh I’m terrible with
direction.”  Follow the other people you hear on this line of moving
sound. You don’t need specifics here and nobody can give you audible
or tactilly-specific directions except another adept blind person
probably because well… seeing people don’t see what is around them
most of the time like airport diagrams or maps hanging on walls.

4. Walk in this direction and listen to what is moving around you.
Notice landmarks like the sound of toilets flushing, the change from
tile to carpeting or the sound of elevator bells etc.  Eavesdrop on
any and all conversations around you.  Sighted folk get unnerved and
become strangely inept if someone just mentions airport travel and
they have signs to read but do not read them because they are looking
for eye-candy.  Why would any reasonable person stop to take five
minutes to study an airport diagram?

5. When you arrive to the check-in area for your particular airline
good luck with the guide ropes.  I most often lift and go under.  The
engineering patent for such is held by BSVI and SSB agencies
nationwide in order to further annoy and help blind people I’m sure so
there’s no bother in contesting this.

5.5 Try to enjoy what you are doing.  Look at this as a sort of NFB
training center drop-off.  Be ready to smile back at someone who asks
you anything.  Use a thumb to ask left or right to move through the
bloody guide ropes.  You will project that which you feel: fear,
reservation, confrontation, self-pity and self-righteousness and this
will be returned to you.

6. When positioned in line speak to the person in front of you, find
their heel with the end of your cane and listen to the movement of the
line and the number of attendants working behind the check-in counter.

6.5 When facing the check-in representative ask for the gate number
and concourse number or letter that is designated.  Listen to the man
or woman beside you at the counter asking for the same information and
directions to security and pay attention to the answer and compare the
directional movement of everybody you’ve listened to while you waited
in line and gain confirmation.  Offer my contact information to all
brunette airline stewardesses when on board your plane.

7. Now listen to the direction in which the people who have completed
their check-in move away from the counter.  They are probably going to
the main hallway that leads everyone to security.  Who likes to tour
airports? People go to airports to leave airports.

8.  Line up in the security check-in and surrender for a handful of
minutes all the pride you have and again listen to the conversations
around you.  Someone in this line might ask for the same information
you need to direct yourself beyond the security checkpoint.

9.  Maybe ask the people in line around you if one is also traveling
to Transylvania as well? Organize and remove all of your metal ahead
of time. Put it inside your shoulder bag before you arrive.  Swallow
your watch or your money clip.

10. If given a choice of multiple concourses ask how many different
concourses exist.  Ask if the concourses is arranged in any order.
IE. Even and odd numbers or A through E to the left and F through J to
the right.  Take time to explain the first 10 letters and numbers of
the Braille code and how uniquely simple and logical it is.

11. After locating your concourse listen to all the people moving like
the walks-fast people we are and politely ask what gate such a person
is heading to.  Ask if odd numbered gates is on the left or the right.
Ask who won the Cavs game last night. Ask why technology has advanced
in every aspect except efficiency?

12. All concourses are concourses.  These function like hamster cage
tubing only they are square instead of cylindrical.  Stay within the
directional flow of the people around you who are departing.  We move
on the right side of hallways just as we drive on the right side of
the streets.  In England etc. guide dogs are held in the right hand
because traffic comes directionally from the left.

13. Listen to the sound of the televisions that have to be by law
turned on and blaring CNN or FOX news to you so you don’t forget to
complain about the media.  Listen to the public address voice speak
information that such and such a flight is ready for boarding at Gate
1, 4, 44 or 48 and know you are in the area of this gate.

14. Pay attention to the youths who are standing prostrated with
clasped hands in prayer posture over their smartphones in the middle
of the concourse oblivious to others.  When you hear one of them
engaged this way lower your shoulder and take him or her out.  Pay
attention to the same nitwit who is approaching you while looking at a
smartphone and not looking straight ahead when walking and impale this
person on the end of your cane.  Have an extra cane tip to replace the
old one you’ve now sacrificed for the betterment of humanity.

15. The truth about airports, shopping malls and baseball stadiums is
that each and every one of them is more or less the same design.  The
architecture inside hasn’t changed since the Roman Coliseum was
erected.  The difference is only eye-candy and not distracting to
blind people who are taking in only that which they know is necessary
to get from A to B.  The concourse hallways do not jockey for position
like racing horses.  Security checkpoint is always positioned between
ticket counter checkin points and the concourse and the ticket
counters is conveniently located near the entrances especially when
you are in Dayton International airport along with the 12 other people
using the airport that day.

16.  If you cannot travel independently in an airport pay your reader
to take you as far as he or she can inside the airport and for God’s
sake stop trying to change the mass of humanity to suit your
individual life experiences.