Divya George, the mother of the five-year-old girl, posted online that the captain of the airline caused the commotion after he refused to allow the child to fly with an infant seat belt. Photo: Divya George Facebook pageKochi: A Malayali couple settled in Singapore, and their five-year-old differently abled child, were put through hours of torment by Scoot Airlines, the budget wing of Singapore Airlines. The captain of the flight refused to fly with the kid on the mother's lap. He insisted that the child be placed on the seat purchased for her, and if the parents were not willing, he asked them to deboard.
Finally, after being held up for nearly two hours, the flight took off but the parents were forced to do to their kid what they had never done to her during the previous 67 times the little one had flown with them. "We put our daughter on her own seat, both of us holding her from both sides,” the mother, Divya George, told Onmanorama in a Facebook chat on Friday. The mother held the child's neck and the father her body, all through the two-hour flight to Phuket, Thailand's largest island. The couple is originally from Kochi.
In a Facebook post, she had put out during the ordeal, Divya explained why her kid had to be kept in her lap. “While she’s five years old she weighs just 8.5 kg and is the size of a one-year-old. If she is placed alone on a seat, she will slid off like any one-year-old,” Divya said. The family had faced some initial objections during earlier flights, too. “But in the last five years, the objections stopped once the captain of the flight saw her,” Divya told Onmanorama.
"The captain comes out, takes a look at her, and despite the fact that she has a full ticket, realises that she can’t sit, and permits the use of the infant seat belt. All is fine. But today wasn't like that," she said.
This time, after nearly an hour of reasoning with the the flight crew, the captain stomped in. He saw the child in her father's arms, her helpless eyes and her weak body, but instead of being moved like other captains in other flights, he brashly told the parents to "offload her if she couldn't sit on her own".
But as the family boarded the Scoot flight on June 14 there was no hint that the experience would turn out to be a nightmare. "As always we requested the ground staff for a baby belt and they agreed that word would be sent to the captain," Divya's FB post said. "When we boarded, the flight attendant saw she was a kid with special needs and mentioned he’d try and issue a baby belt," the post added.
But after a while, the warmth just vanished. “The attendant informed that the captain has denied permission to fly with the child in my lap,” Divya said. Words were exchanged, and Divya has posted a video on her FB page of her distraught husband trying to reason with one of the attendants in as calm a manner as possible; the child lying in his arms with her face towards the camera, her large eyes looking helpless. “Anyone who is sick, or paralysed or who cannot take care of themselves cannot fly on Singapore Airlines or Scoot. Is that correct? This is what they are saying, because of safety, right?,” the father is seen asking.
"It turned out to be a 90-minute ordeal, with the whole flight being held up, and us being told that our baggage was going to be offloaded and so would we," Divya wrote on her FB page. "I’m heartbroken to be told that some captain won’t fly my daughter as she can’t sit on her own seat for no fault of hers," she added.
When asked whether she had registered a complaint with the Scoot management, Divya said that she was yet to decide on the future course of action.
Scoot website silent on children with special needs
Onmanorama tried to get in touch with Scoot, but we are yet to get a detailed response from the airline company. The only response till now has been an auto-generated mail.
The Scoot website has a dedicated page for 'special assistance', which speaks about how even service dogs should be carried along, but is silent about children with special needs.
The only response that comes close is the answer to an FAQ, within the Scoot website, about requesting for a bassinet for a child on board. “Scoot does not allow or provide bassinets in aircraft cabins. Infants must be at least eight days old to travel and must travel with an accompanying adult who is at least 18 years old. Unless a seat is purchased for the infant, the infant must be held on the adult's lap for the duration of the flight, for which infant seat belts are available.”
In Divya's case, a seat was purchased but she wanted the child on her lap because of her special needs.
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