S. 1911 · 118th Congress
Airline Safety Information and Entertainment Access Act
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Never voted on. It didn't reach a floor vote before the 118th Congress ended, so it expired. A bill has to be introduced again to be considered in a new Congress.
D
CaseySponsor6 cosponsors · 5 D, 1 I
5 signed on when it was introduced; the rest joined later. Cosponsors who withdrew aren't shown.
This bill requires air carriers (including foreign carriers) to ensure equal access to airline information and entertainment programming for all airline passengers regardless of their disabilities.
What it does: CRS summary · Introduced in Senate · Jun 8, 2023
Airline Safety Information and Entertainment Access Act
This bill requires air carriers (including foreign carriers) to ensure equal access to airline information and entertainment programming for all airline passengers regardless of their disabilities.
Specifically, the bill requires an air carrier to provide or make available for persons with disabilities
- open captioning and an American Sign Language (ASL) option when the information and programming are available to passengers through shared video displays,
- closed captioning and an ASL option when the information and programming are available to passengers through individual video displays, and
- audio descriptions when the information and programming are available to passengers through individual or shared video displays.
An air carrier must also provide any aural public address announcement in textual format through individual or shared video displays.
Further, an air carrier must ensure all control systems for video displays, applications (apps) for personal devices, web portals, and websites for passengers have the option to allow a person with a disability to operate the item nonvisually.
The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (the Access Board) must set forth the minimum technical criteria for individual video displays, apps for personal devices, web portals, and websites for airline passengers to ensure that they include a mechanism that allows persons with disabilities to operate them nonvisually. The Department of Transportation must issue any necessary regulations.
A civil action may be brought by an aggrieved person or the Department of Justice in a U.S. District Court against an air carrier for violations of these requirements.
Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov
About this bill and sources
Official title: Airline Safety Information and Entertainment Access Act
Latest action (Jun 8, 2023): Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Policy area: Transportation and Public Works · Origin: Senate · Introduced: Jun 8, 2023
Official page on Congress.gov · Bill text (GovInfo) · Status record (XML)
No recorded floor vote found.