On Thursday morning (14 June 2018), Singapore residents Divya George, her husband, and their five year old daughter with special needs, were aboard a Scoot flight, ready to head to Phuket.
Little did they know that the captain of the low-cost airline was about to boot them off the flight because of their little girl.
Asked to get off flight because of special needs daughter. Is this fair? Image: Diya George’s Facebook page
Asked to get off flight due to special needs daughter’s requirements
In a public Facebook post Divya shared, she explains what happened.
Apparently, the captain of that particular Scoot flight refused to fly the plane with the child wearing an infant seat belt, sitting on her mother’s lap.
To explain, even though Divya’s daughter is five years old, she is the size of a one-year-old, weighing only 8.5kg. She has a condition known as muscular dystrophy.
Divya writes:
“Our flight that was to take off at 7:35am has been delayed by an hour so far because they refuse to fly with my special needs child. They want to deplane us because they refuse to take her.”
She also reportedly explained why her child is not able to sit on her own seat:
“Our daughter cannot sit alone in her seat, if she does that, she’ll fall off and hurt her back.
“This is not the first time we are flying with her and none of the other airlines have refused to fly with her. I keep her in my lap throughout the flight and they provide me with an infant seat belt.
“But this time, the Captain outrightly refused to fly with her on my lap and insisted that she sits in her seat.”
The family are frequent travellers and this is the first time they’ve encountered such a negative experience. Image from Divya George’s Facebook account.
Callous captain?
In another post later on the same day, Divya said she is “saddened beyond words” because of what happened. She states the captain even said that it was not his problem if the girl slid off her mom’s lap and hurt herself during the flight.
“For those of you waiting for an update….. our daughter has ALWAYS HAD HER OWN SEAT. This is how the Capt wanted my daughter to fly.
“Our request for using an infant seat belt was denied as she’s a child with her own seat. (While she’s 5 years old she weighs 8.5 kgs and is the size of a 1 year old)
“The Capt sited safety reasons for his inability to let us fly while holding her on our lap with an infant seat belt. He refused to come out and speak to us for an hour and had SAT tell us we could either deboard or leave our daughter on her own seat.
“Finally when we did speak to him – On mentioning she could hurt herself and will slide off the seat he said “then it’s the airlines lookout.” Shame !!! Saddened beyond words.”
They stood their ground…
In her latest post on the matter, the feisty mom has this to say:
The reason I’ve given these details is because I can see the trolls have started so this post is to clarify few things for you.
I’m heartbroken to be told that some Capt won’t fly my daughter as she can’t sit on her own seat for no fault of hers.
I don’t know what I’m going to do next but I clearly don’t intend to stop flying!!! THIS IS MY LAST POST!
We hope this mom and her family get some answers from the relevant authorities. Being differently abled is no grounds for discrimination.