Degree of Challenges in Communication between Deaf Passengers and Airline and Airport Employees (original) (raw)

Pursuing excellence in customer service, installing world-class facilities, demonstrating high quality security and safety standards are the main keys to be a country's premiere international gateway. On top of these hallmarks, an inclusive service has to be made available to all passengers from different walks of life. This has been highlighted as there is a rapid increase in the number of passengers that go in and out through the different terminals in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Agcaoili, 2015), and this includes many deaf passengers. Like the Philippines, along with its international counterparts, has started initiating improvements to many of its services as it vies to becoming the destination of choice and the best aviation service provider in the world. These visions entail reconstructing and constructing the aesthetics and re-engineering the passenger-personnel communication frameworks which have already been in the pipeline. In realizing these goals, this paper employed a quantitative approach to identify the degree of challenges in communication between deaf passengers and airport and airline employees. Through a purposive sampling technique, the challenges were identified according to services the industry offers and were analyzed how they become challenging. A researcher-designed survey-questionnaire was distributed to eighteen (18) deaf passengers who were enrolled in the School for Deaf of the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde and twenty (20) airport personnel with nine (9) airline employees in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminals 1, 2, and 3. They were purposively selected for they have travelled domestically and/or internationally, and have serviced various types of travelers. The study revealed that among the three groups of respondents, only airline employees found it least challenging to communicate with deaf passengers while deaf passengers and airport employees encountered difficulties in communicating with each other, thus accepting the null hypotheses which state that there is no significant difference on the challenges when grouped according to demographics and airline and airport services. Further, the paper conclusively reveals that deaf passengers, despite various advancements, still find it challenging to communicate with airport and airline employees in terms of the services offered. Further research is encouraged to delve into creating a manual on how airline and airport employees should communicate with passengers who have special needs in general.

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact