Why are British airports still failing children with autism?

For most of us, there’s not a lot to love about taking kids through an airport at this time of year.

The vast spaces are noisy and busy, full of snaking queues of people tripping you up on their cumbersome baggage. Once you go through security, you’re sucked into a mass of hurrying people who seem to be going nowhere, before being ejected into a busy shopping mall at the other end.

It’s not pleasant for anyone, but with the promise of a beach at the other end, most children get swept along in the excitement and cope.

For my son Sam, who has autism, it’s a different story.

For him and thousands of other children and adults with the condition, noisy airports with their flashing lights, moving walkways and puzzling signage, can be confusing and overwhelming. For many, it’s just too much, making air travel impossible.

For Sam, it is an experience that needs managing, which explains why this summer, as the sole adult flying to the south of France with my two children, I need to plan better, travel smarter, and take up all the help I can get.

But what are airports actually doing to support families like ours?

This is the first peak travel season since the Civil Aviation Authority called on the UK’s 30 largest airports to do more to help those with hidden disabilities including autism, issuing a checklist for airports to ensure a more standardised level of service.

Had these measures been in place when we flew last summer (and had we known to ask for them), we could have had a very different experience. Instead, we faced an obstacle course of challenges from the moment we entered the airport building.

Within five minutes, as our check-in baggage disappeared down a conveyor belt, our son screamed and tried to chase it.

The queueing already had him hugely on edge, and having to take off his beloved back-pack to put it through the X-ray machine sent his anxiety levels soaring.

Then, as neither my husband nor I was allowed to carry our terrified five-year-old son through the body scanner, we faced a huge meltdown that my 6ft husband struggled to contain.

“You look stressed,” joked a member of airport staff. My spoken response (rather than my physical instinct to clobber him) that my poor boy was distressed because he had autism, was met with a blank look.

I’ve since learnt that Gatwick, where we flew from, was the first UK airport to be given an Autism Friendly award from the National Autistic Society in November last year for the range of measures it has introduced to help those with the condition. Check out Gatwick’s visual guide, which you can show children to prepare them for going through the airport.

I was surprised given our rollercoaster experience a few months earlier, but hope that families flying this summer should be able to expect a better level of support.

What can parents do to help children with autism in airports?

As parents could have done more last summer. We should have found out exactly what help was available for families like ours, and prepared Sam more for the challenges of the airport experience.

In our defence, when we’d flown a year earlier, he’d been absolutely fine, so we were pretty unprepared for his uncontrollable levels of anxiety this time around.

With pressure from the CAA there is a growing willingness from many airports to take action. Manchester has been praised for its work. Birmingham Airport recently joined Gatwick as an Autism Friendly Award winner, while Inverness, Aberdeen, Bristol, Exeter and Newquay are also working with the NAS to achieve that status.

Others talk a good game, and I hope they follow it through in practice. Heathrow, where I am flying from this summer, issues a series of guides for anxious flyers, and offers pamphlet for people with autism, but much of its two pages are taken up with explaining what autism is.  An autism-specific guide should explain the airport and process through the eyes of someone with autism and give specific examples of how things can be done differently for people with autism. 

Contrast that with the sensory room, for example, that Dublin’s Shannon Airport offers - a space for children with autism spectrum disorder to calm down amid the chaos, and this seems rather underwhelming from the world’s second-busiest airport.

And then there’s the return journey. While it may be relatively simple to find out information about airport facilities in the UK, preparing to fly back from a foreign country is a whole different challenge.

While some airports, notably in the States, are making huge strides, globally we still have a long way to go to make air travel truly accessible for those with autism.

What to do in advance

For parents, preparation is the key. This summer I have specifically chosen a 6am flight, when the airport will be quieter. I won’t be checking in baggage or giving my son a bag he’ll have to surrender at security, and I will be asking to use the priority lane to avoid those dreaded queues.

Our airline, British Airways, told me that if I flag up my son’s needs 48 hours in advance, we will be able to board the plane first and be served our food ahead of the other passengers.

Crucially, all cabin crew will also be made aware of our situation.

So on paper, the picture has improved since the CAA’s guidelines were issued last December, but whether things work as well in practice on a busy changeover summer Saturday is for travelling families to find out.

The airport experience with autism remains something of a frustrating unknown. And as any parents of an autistic child know, that in itself is still pretty unhelpful.

Six things parents can do to help their child with autism in airports

1. Find out what support is available at the airport you’re flying from and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
2. If you ask for nothing else, request to use priority queues to keep stress levels manageable.
3. Read books and guides to help your child understand the airport process, and prepare a visual timetable, explaining each stage of the journey.
4. Find out where there are quiet areas in the airport and, crucially, if young children are allowed in them.
5. Take anything likely to make the journey easier including ear defenders, books, toys and lots of snacks.
6. Find daylight. Enclosed buildings like airports can be especially disorientating. Finding somewhere to observe the parked-up planes or runway may provide a welcome distraction.