(Trinidad Express) The family of a three-year-old non-verbal autistic child are complaining that their return trip home to Trinidad was tainted by several rude interactions on board a Caribbean Airlines (CAL) flight from Tobago last week.
Arima resident and father Rishi Ramoutar told the Express yesterday that he and his family were filled with dread as they returned home from a family vacation on Friday.
He said their daughter, who has a developmental disability, had started crying and screaming while on the flight.
He said the family was warned by a flight attendant that the plane would have to be turned around and they were later confronted by airport security, airline staff and the aircraft’s pilot following their child’s episode.
‘I am unaware if staff training to understand and deal with special-needs persons on board flights are done by CAL, but it didn’t seem that way in my experience. We have flown on other airlines internationally and have never had any issues like this,’ Ramoutar said.
In an earlier post on social media detailing his experience, Ramoutar said he was warned the flight would be turned around after his tired child had begun to unbuckle her seatbelt.
Due to the nature of her developmental disability, the child did not understand the safety requirement, her father said.
An attendant had come to the child’s seat and tightened her seatbelt which then triggered a reaction from the child.
She began to cry and scream, the father said.
Ramoutar said his mother-in-law, who was next to the child, decided to hold her in her lap and strap a seatbelt over them both until the child had settled.
But then, Ramoutar alleged, the flight attendant instructed the family to ‘hold her down even if she cries’, and to ‘hold down the seatbelt’.
‘As the parents of a special needs child we know how traumatising holding her down while she is kicking and screaming would be. We understood that she ideally needed to be in her own seat (which she usually is) but at the moment having her grandmother hold her and strapping her in seemed to be the safest option for her and best for those around who would no longer have to deal with screaming and their seats being kicked. At no point in time were we offered an extender belt or any sort of alternative that could have alleviated the situation,’ he wrote.
Ramoutar admitted that, angered by the situation, he uttered an expletive at the time.
They were later visited by another flight attendant who apologised after being told of their child’s disability and confirming that she had fallen asleep, he said.
Meeting with security
Although the family believed this to be the end of the interaction, Ramoutar said they were told upon landing that they could not leave the plane until they were met by security.
Staff, he said, told the family to step outside the plane and stand to the side of its external staircase.
There they were greeted by airport security personnel, two CAL representatives and a senior investigator who enquired what occurred on board and took copies of their identification, Ramoutar said.
He said the family was then met by the pilot.
‘He was adamant that the law is such that a child over two years old needs to be in their own seat with a seatbelt on…We told him we understood what he was saying but given the situation we did what we thought was the best possible thing for our child and those around…We asked him if there is any procedure in place for persons with special needs and he said no.
‘He said we needed to do our own research when purchasing a flight ticket and see what options were available as well as indicate special needs when purchasing. I have never seen any space on the CAL app that allows me to indicate such, and we travel often,’ said Ramoutar.
He said he was told that he could be arrested and taken to a police station for using obscene language while on the flight.
An officer, he said, told the family that they could not ‘hide’ behind their child being ‘sick’.
He added that the family was told they could be blacklisted from further CAL flights.
To avoid this, Ramoutar said they were told to ‘genuinely’ apologise to the first flight attendant to avoid her pressing charges.
‘At this point in time, we had been standing on the tarmac for close to an hour, with no safety gear. Nobody even suggested taking us to a room inside the airport itself totally disregarding our safety.
‘My daughter had woken up and was crying again so in the end I decided to apologise to the flight attendant so that I could take my family home and so that everyone else there would be able to leave also,’ Ramoutar wrote.
According to CAL’s website, requests for special assistance can be made before booking a flight as required by the US Code of Federal Regulations. 382, which outlines non-discrimination on the basis of disability in air travel.
Cognitive and developmental assistance, its website states, can be requested.
Ramoutar, who told the Express that his daughter was a regular flier, added that she was not in need of such assistance at the time. Additionally, he said he has since visited the airline’s website to look for an outlet for such requests but could not find any such offerings.
In response to the Express yesterday, CAL said it was in contact with the Ramoutar family and looking into the issue.