Flight To Success: Deaf Plane Guy

Contract Airline Services

Friday, August 24, 2018

Deaf Plane Guy

Friday's Fabulous Flyer!

Sohaib Khan

My name is Sohaib Khan, I am 22 years old and currently studying BA(Hons) in Accounting and Finance (first year) at the University of Derby. Growing up in a hearing family as a Deaf person means that I have effective communication skills and can communicate with both hearing and deaf people using both British and International Sign Language and speech (through a BSL interpreter). I am an outgoing, strong, confident and positive individual with a love for aviation.

I have my own YouTube Channel

with over 1,400 subscribers. Link:

Deaf Plane Guy YouTube

I also have Instagram and Twitter accounts (@deafplaneguy). Both of those social media feeds have plenty of news and photos of aviation.

From my childhood, I have been absolutely passionate about all forms of aviation. Around 5 years ago, I attempted to begin a career within the aviation industry. My first flight experience was PIA (Pakistan International Airline) Boeing B747-300 from Manchester UK to Islamabad Pakistan in 2000. However, following an application onto the Cabin Crew Training (Level 2) programme at Leeds City College, I was unfortunately rejected for health and safety reasons. However, I visited pilot school in Leeds Bradford airport to gain more information for training to become a pilot and, again for the same reasons was not successful.

Despite my disappointment in not becoming a pilot, I wanted to share my passion with other people. My first video was a review on the flight I went on by Monarch Airlines Airbus A321 from Birmingham (BHX) to Sharm El Sheikh (SSH) in February 2015. Following this video, I was delighted to get feedback from other plane-spotters and I learnt a lot on how to improve my following videos.

After I post each flight review on my YouTube channel, I always update my followers on Instagram and Twitter so they can then view my new video blogs. Continued exposure to flight review videos will make your company more attractive for plane-spotters and also for deaf people who will learn about the good customer services they will receive.

Because I am passionate about aviation, I believe I could contribute with doing flight reviews and showing others how they can enjoy the experience of flying with your company. This would be an amazing career for which I would work very hard in.

In my research, I have found other travel bloggers on YouTube channel, are not always accessible which means deaf and hard of hearing people cannot watch them.

When creating the flight review videos, I will use international sign language and it will be captioned so that any deaf or hearing people can watch and enjoy them. Using International Sign Language would mean that deaf people from all over the world can watch and understand my videos, regardless of which language they use. This will allow deaf people access to be able to partake in traveling across the world through watching my flight review videos. The bonus of this would highlight companies to increase their awareness in the issues deaf people face when flying with them. This will flight companies to be able to improve their services so that deaf people can enjoy their flights. One way of doing this is by teaching cabin crews basic sign language, to break down barriers when they communicate with deaf people. When it is easier for staff and deaf passengers to communicate, there will be less stress and confusion.

According to the World Health Organization, “Around 466 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss (1), and 34 million of these are children.” And “It is estimated that by 2050 over 900 million people will have disabling hearing loss.”

From Action on Hearing Loss website shows, “There are 11 million people with hearing loss across the UK, that's around one in six of us,” “By 2035, we estimate there'll be around 15.6 million people with hearing loss across the UK - that's one in five.” and “An estimated 900,000 people in the UK have severe or profound hearing loss.”

For this project I am trying to secure some funding from flight companies to help with ticket costs. I am happy to use economy class seat during the flights. The fund will be very useful to help my future work with your company and spread more viewers to demand more the more you get the better economic. During the flight review videos, it will include your company brand watermark on any corner of video with my deaf plane guy logo too. However, I have Patreon profile link: this is very helpful to support on flight ticket cost.