Travelling deaf or hard of hearing: airports, hotels, doctors and emergencies

Travel runs on spoken words: the gate change, the name called at the desk, the question through the glass, the knock on the door. For a traveller who is deaf or hard of hearing, each is a small gap — and abroad, where lip-reading has nothing familiar to hold on to, the gaps get wider.

Almost all of them close the same way: by getting it in writing, arranged mostly before you leave. Here is what to set up, what to ask for at each counter, and how to call for help without a phone call.

Whether you sign, lip-read, use hearing aids or none of these, this is about communication and your rights as a passenger — not medical advice.

• The airport
• The hotel
• Taxis and restaurants
• Pharmacies and doctors
• Emergencies
• At a counter
• What goes wrong
• Questions

At the airport: get the announcements in writing

Departure screens carry most of what matters. The trouble is the last half hour — the boarding call, the late change of gate, the passenger asked to come to the desk — which is often spoken before it is written anywhere.

Tell the airline before you fly

In the EU, passengers with a disability have a right to free assistance, and the regulation behind it names a sensory disability as a reason to have it. What makes it work is notice.

• Give at least 48 hours' notice. Ideally when you book. Without notice the airline must still make all reasonable efforts — which is not the same as a plan.
• Say exactly what you need. Not "assistance", but "please tell me in person or in writing about gate changes and boarding". There is a standard booking code, DEAF; Germany's Federal Aviation Office lists it among the codes for passengers who need assistance.
• Ask for information you can read. The EU regulation requires airlines to provide "communication of essential information concerning a flight in accessible formats".
• Flying to or from the United States? US rules give passengers who ask prompt access to the same information as everyone else at the gate: delays, gate changes, boarding, even a passenger being paged.
• In the UK, ask about a lanyard. The Civil Aviation Authority counts hearing loss among hidden disabilities, and some airports offer an optional lanyard or badge for hidden disabilities.

At the gate and on board

1. Introduce yourself at the gate desk. Show your card (there is one below) and ask them to come and tell you when boarding starts or anything changes.
2. Sit where you can see the screen and the desk. When the staff pick up the microphone, something is about to change.
3. Turn on the airline's notifications. Gate changes then reach your phone in writing, and a phone that vibrates does not need to be heard.
4. Tell the crew when you board. Ask to be told in person about anything announced later — a delay, a diversion, the gate for your connection.

At US security, the TSA says you need not remove hearing aids or cochlear implants; tell the officer you are deaf or hard of hearing.

Hotel check-in, and the alarm you will not hear

Check-in is short and predictable until the end, when a burst of information arrives — room, floor, breakfast hours, Wi-Fi, check-out — said at speed, with a queue behind you.

• Ask for the essentials in writing. On the key-card sleeve or a slip of paper. It takes seconds and saves five trips back to the desk.
• Ask about the alarm when you book. Does the hotel have a visual or vibrating fire alarm for the room? An answer in writing is worth more than a promise at the desk.
• Make sure reception knows which room is yours. Someone has to come to your door in an evacuation. Ask them to tell the night staff too.
• Agree how they will reach you. A text message to your phone works at three in the morning; a call to the room phone does not.

Taxis and restaurants: settle it before anyone speaks

A taxi is the hardest place there is for lip-reading: the driver faces forward, and the questions come over a shoulder. Settle everything before the car moves.

• Show the address, don't say it. In the local language and script, copied from your booking, with the entrance or terminal added.
• Agree the fare, or the meter, before you get in. Some airports have fixed fares; our guide to being overcharged abroad has the rules in four countries.
• A ride booked on your phone puts it all in writing. The destination, the price and the driver's messages.

Restaurants are kinder: the menu is the one thing on the table you can read. Take the seat with the light on the other person's face, and expect the usual questions — still or sparkling, card or cash. A phone camera can even translate the menu: here is how.

Pharmacies and doctors: where every word matters

Elsewhere a misunderstanding costs you a gate or a dessert. At a pharmacy or a doctor's, it can be the dose.

• At the pharmacy, have the instructions written on the box. How many, how often, for how many days. Our guide to pharmacies abroad covers the five facts a pharmacist needs from you.
• At the doctor's, ask for an interpreter. A sign-language interpreter, if you sign. Ask when you book, and do not assume one is free or available at night.
• Your sign language is probably not theirs. The United Nations, citing the World Federation of the Deaf, counts more than 300 sign languages. International Sign exists, but it has a limited vocabulary and is used at international meetings and, informally, when travelling.
• Leave with it on paper. The diagnosis, each medicine's name and strength, the dose, and when to come back.

Emergencies: how to call for help without calling

112 is free from any phone, everywhere in the EU. But it is, first of all, a phone call — exactly what you cannot make if you cannot hear the operator, or cannot speak to them.

Ways to reach the emergency services without speaking exist, but each country has built its own. The European Commission's report on 112 found that people with disabilities "do not yet benefit from fully equivalent means of access", especially when travelling with a phone from home. So the plan is made before you travel.

If there is no way to text, hand the call to someone who can hear, or go in person to a police station or a hospital, with your address ready to show.

A translation or captioning app is not an emergency line. Ours included: it can make mistakes and needs an internet connection. When seconds matter, use the emergency service's own way in.

At a counter, reading beats lip-reading

Lip-reading asks a lot of the other person without their knowing it: face you, keep still, speak normally. A counter abroad breaks all three. The clerk looks down at a screen while talking, speaks through glass, and does it in a language whose shapes on the lips you have never learned.

Writing fixes that, but a queue does not wait while somebody finds a pen. Live captions sit in between: the phone lies on the counter, the other person keeps talking as they always do, and what they say appears on the screen as they say it — in your language, if they speak another. A number you missed is still there to read again.

The card to carry

Show it before the conversation starts, not after the third "sorry?". It tells the other person what to do, so they do not have to guess.

What usually goes wrong when you travel deaf or hard of hearing

Rarely the big things. Nearly always one spoken sentence nobody wrote down.

• The gate change.

  The screen updates late, and the only sign is a crowd walking away. Tell the gate desk who you are, and someone can come to find you.

• The nod.

  After the third "sorry?", you nod to end it — and agree to an upgrade you did not want, or a deposit you did not understand.

• The number in the sentence.

  Fifteen and fifty, gate 13 and gate 30: across a counter they look and sound alike. Ask for every number to be written.

• The alarm at three in the morning.

  The day receptionist knew there was a deaf guest in room 214. The night receptionist did not. Tell both.

• The emergency plan that stayed at home.

  The text service you know is your own country's. None of those above is a 112 by text for the whole of Europe.

Travelling deaf or hard of hearing: the numbers

Before you travel: an hour that pays for the whole trip

• Write your card. In the language of every country on your route.
• Tell the airline at least 48 hours ahead. Ask for the DEAF code on your booking — and give trains, coaches and ferries notice too.
• Find the emergency text option where you are going. Register before you leave if it asks you to.
• E-mail the hotel about the alarm. And keep the reply.
• Keep addresses in the local script. Ready to show a driver.
• Pack power. Your phone is your boarding pass, your gate alerts and your way to call for help. Carry a power bank.
• Try your captioning app at home first. In a real conversation — not for the first time at a ticket window.

Travelling deaf or hard of hearing: questions people ask

Official help, in one place

• Your Europe — Rights for travellers with disabilities or reduced mobilityFree assistance, and the notice each kind of transport needs.
• UK Civil Aviation Authority — How to access help and supportRequesting assistance at UK airports.
• United States — 14 CFR 382.53The information airlines must give at US airports to passengers who need hearing assistance.
• France — The 114 emergency numberText, chat and video, free, day and night.
• Germany — nora, the official emergency appEmergency calls without speaking, anywhere in Germany.
• World Federation of the Deaf — MembersThe national association of the deaf in 140 countries.