The feature is available on Boeing 787s, which have recently been introduced to Air Canada’s fleet. An Air Canada spokesman, Peter Fitzpatrick, said, “We use a female voice in English and male voice in French. Voices are fed from the text-to-speech software that Air Canada licenses to operate its content management system.”
Air Canada has also been looking at the possibility of adding audio description to its in-flight movies. In August 2014, Emirates became the first airline to provide audio description, with the service made available on 17 Disney movies.
These developments come in the wake of a US Department of Transportation notice of proposed rulemaking about accessible in-flight entertainment systems, which it intends to implement in 2015.
For more information about Air Canada’s accessibility initiatives, see this article on Runway Girl Network.
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