Mom Takes To Social Media To Slam Airline For Denying Her Autistic Son Access Because They Wouldn’t Pay £25 For His Small Comfort Doll

May 23, 2019

Author By Mambee

Now and then, we all hear of passengers being mistreated at the hands of airline officials. Little did mother Helen Estella know that she and her 15-year-old son would be the next victims.

In a Facebook post that has since been deleted, Helen recounted her horrible experience at the hands of Ryanair Airlines.

She explained that she and her son, Leo, who is autistic, were at the Alicante airport getting ready to board when airline officials wanted to charge them £25 for the boy to be allowed to take his doll on board.

They claimed there was a carry-on fee for the comfort toy. Immediately, Leo had an autistic meltdown and began throwing tantrums.

To her surprise, five policemen arrived on the scene and refused to allow him to board. Who does that to a child? Even when the family requested special assistance, they were denied, as the airline said he could walk.

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Their luggage was removed from the plane, and they were told they couldn’t board another flight until four days after.

Luckily, Helen and Leo were able to get on a Jet2 flight later that day. This time, the officials were aware of Leo’s condition and offered him proper care. They stayed with Leo from the moment they bought the tickets until he boarded the plane.

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The angered mother ended her post saying:

“Shame on you Ryanair. You have frightened my son from flying for life, and a vulnerable child has to be drugged because of your greedy money-making.”

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Many internet users were appalled by the occurrence and aired their opinion on the matter.

@Ryanair Your company seriously needs to look at training staff to understand Autism. This is a disgrace 😡
— helen.wakefield@rocketmail.com (@helenwakefiel11) April 27, 2019

However, a spokesman for the airline said to The Sun that Helen and Leo didn’t, in fact, make it to the boarding gate.

They explained that when Leo became aggressive, the carer decided not to travel anymore. And that since they never got to the boarding gate, their luggage was offloaded.

It’s not certain what side of the story is true, but this isn’t Ryanair’s first dispute with an autistic child.

In 2018, they removed a 13-year-old from a flight because the teenager wasn't traveling with family. However, the child’s mum said she had provided documents to show that her daughter was traveling with her godmother.

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Ryanair needs to do better and train their staff on how to handle people with disabilities. This is unacceptable!