In order to improve the experience of all its passengers, since July 1, all SKY Airline aircraft have a useful information guide in Braille for people with visual disabilities.
“This initiative aims to add more inclusive practices, improving the experience and ensuring that everyone can access the same information about our onboard service, in addition to the security measures, which are a priority for us,” says Mayra Kohler, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Manager at SKY Airline.
The booklet, which is available in Braille in both Spanish and English, provides much more than just safety information. It guides this group of passengers on the location of exits and seat belt use, explains where the toilets are, how to remove the table tops and recline the seats, among other instructions. The cabin crew will be responsible for providing these guides to visually impaired passengers who require them. However, for those who cannot read Braille, the crew will continue to provide the mandatory safety briefing verbally to all visually impaired passengers.
The idea of adding this guide was born from the concern of SKY cabin crew member Salomé Mujica, who has a family member with a visual disability. “We always provide safety information in a clear and friendly manner, but verbally, to passengers with visual disabilities. After speaking with a blind passenger who read Braille, I suggested to my boss that we create a useful guide for this group of people and today I am happy that the airline has decided to go ahead with this project,” she adds.
According to the National Survey on Disability and Dependency (ENDIDE) conducted in 2022, there are 153,560 blind adults in Chile. With the aim of educating and training the blind or low vision population in the country, there is an institution called Fundación Luz that founded the first school for blind people in Latin America in 1947 and is now about to open the first Center for Visual Disabilities in Chile.
Sofía Villavicencio, executive director of this organization, emphasizes that “at Fundación Luz we do comprehensive work with blind or low vision people throughout their lives, promoting their inclusion, autonomy and independence,” and adds that “the measures taken at SKY are super important, because although blind people are autonomous, it is essential that we all do the work conscientiously to integrate them into our society; they are also part of it and have a lot to give, but most of the time it is us, people without disabilities, who complicate the path for them.”
According to data from the World Health Organization, more than 285 million people in the world have some form of visual impairment. Of these, 39 million are completely blind.