Kicked off the plane — because their son has autism - video Dailymotion

They bought their tickets and prepped for their family vacation, but they were kicked off the plane — because their son has autism.

Transcript

00:00I couldn't protect my boys and I did everything I was supposed to do.

00:04I did everything right. I couldn't stop it. I was powerless.

00:15We've never, never been treated like this ever.

00:18It was just so disheartening because we did everything we were supposed to do.

00:30So October 4th, the day of the flight, Milo walks onto that jet bridge, happy as can be.

00:49When we turn and he actually sees the door of the airplane, he freezes,

00:55puts on the brakes, still holding my hand. I know he's scared. I'm not going to push him.

01:01I'm not going to escalate the situation. It's all right. I said, he has autism.

01:05He just got a little scared. I can already see that same female

01:11agent who I just explained Milo had autism. She's like marching up.

01:14She points to Milo and she says, he's not allowed on this flight.

01:18I know he's going to start crying again and we're going to have to turn this flight around

01:24in the air and escort your entire family off.

01:34Regardless of popular belief about airline policy, policy differs when you're dealing

01:39with people with disability, especially those with autism. Like you can't just assume an

01:43autistic person's going to ruin a flight. The reason I'm talking about American Airlines,

01:47because that's their whole thing is like, we're advocates. We raise autism awareness.

01:52You're not raising autism awareness and you're definitely not promoting

01:56autism acceptance by staying so silent about this.

02:10Autism is a spectrum. People don't understand. They just, because they just see what they see

02:15on TV, what they see in media, that family on 60 Minutes that's portrayed. They only see the

02:20severe cases and they think that's all it is to autism. They don't understand what it is.

02:33If you really are advocates for autism, if you really are raising autism awareness,

02:38at least make that more visible to the public about what you're doing on that end and what

02:45you're going to do to remedy the fact. So this never happens again. If what happened to us can

02:50be a catalyst to making it a better experience for other families with children with disabilities,

02:57or even people with disabilities or children with autism, you know, I would like to see that.