Autistic woman ‘led away from easyJet flight by police’

[AGXStarseed]

(Not written by me)


An autistic woman has accused easyJet of “acting like bullies” after claiming her request to move to a quieter seat resulted in her being led off a plane by police.

Manuela Atzori, 39, had boarded a flight from London Stansted to Glasgow on 21 September but became overwhelmed by noise and went to the back of the plane to get some air.

As she stood by the open door with the plane still on the tarmac, air stewards asked if she was unwell. She explained she was autistic and was sensitive to noise but had flown with easyJet before.

“People were laughing and shouting and I said I was over-sensitive to it,” the businesswoman told the Herald newspaper.

“They gave me a seat but I was only there for a few seconds before another steward came over and said: ‘It’s not noisy at all’.

“I asked if I could sit in another seat, but they said no and asked me to leave the flight.”

Ms Atzori’s passport and boarding pass were taken away and she was led away from the aircraft by police, before waiting for hours in the main terminal for another flight.


24 hour delay

She was initially told she could travel on a later flight to Glasgow, but staff eventually informed her that this would not be possible, so she had to spend the night in a nearby hotel.

A spokeswoman for easyJet insisted that the airline would “never prevent someone from flying because they are autistic”.

She added: “Unfortunately Ms Atzori was unable to travel to Glasgow on 21 September as our crew had concerns for her well-being as she was clearly distressed.

“We transferred her flight and provided overnight accommodation and she was fully supported by EasyJet employees along with the special assistance provider at the airport until she flew to Glasgow on 22 September.

“We understand the situation was difficult for Ms Atzori and have been in regular contact with her since.

“Our pilots were trying to act in the best interests of the customer and we believe they were compassionate and supportive throughout.”

The company said it was working with National Autistic Society and the Alzheimer’s Society to help people with “hidden disabilities” who needed extra help when travelling.


Source: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/autistic-woman-led-away-easyjet-flight-police/

 

[Streetwise]

thats the we dont want bad publicity damage control speech and we'll disrespect people who are neurodiverse by calling it a hidden disability

(Not written by me)


An autistic woman has accused easyJet of “acting like bullies” after claiming her request to move to a quieter seat resulted in her being led off a plane by police.

Manuela Atzori, 39, had boarded a flight from London Stansted to Glasgow on 21 September but became overwhelmed by noise and went to the back of the plane to get some air.

As she stood by the open door with the plane still on the tarmac, air stewards asked if she was unwell. She explained she was autistic and was sensitive to noise but had flown with easyJet before.

“People were laughing and shouting and I said I was over-sensitive to it,” the businesswoman told the Herald newspaper.

“They gave me a seat but I was only there for a few seconds before another steward came over and said: ‘It’s not noisy at all’.

“I asked if I could sit in another seat, but they said no and asked me to leave the flight.”

Ms Atzori’s passport and boarding pass were taken away and she was led away from the aircraft by police, before waiting for hours in the main terminal for another flight.


24 hour delay

She was initially told she could travel on a later flight to Glasgow, but staff eventually informed her that this would not be possible, so she had to spend the night in a nearby hotel.

A spokeswoman for easyJet insisted that the airline would “never prevent someone from flying because they are autistic”.

She added: “Unfortunately Ms Atzori was unable to travel to Glasgow on 21 September as our crew had concerns for her well-being as she was clearly distressed.

“We transferred her flight and provided overnight accommodation and she was fully supported by EasyJet employees along with the special assistance provider at the airport until she flew to Glasgow on 22 September.

“We understand the situation was difficult for Ms Atzori and have been in regular contact with her since.

“Our pilots were trying to act in the best interests of the customer and we believe they were compassionate and supportive throughout.”

The company said it was working with National Autistic Society and the Alzheimer’s Society to help people with “hidden disabilities” who needed extra help when travelling.


Source: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/autistic-woman-led-away-easyjet-flight-police/

 

[Judge]

I wish there was a simple way to explain to an NT what it is to deal with misophonia. That we can't necessarily control our reactions to sound each and every time. That quite often we experience a flight or fight response and it has nothing to do with attitude.

I suppose I am lucky in this instance, in having sufficient control over such a thing in being able to process it ahead of time. To know in advance that a lot of sustained noise it coming my way whenever I had to fly. Plus the fact that I enjoy the sensation of extreme speed. But I can certainly relate to those of you who cannot manage such things on command.

 

[Mia]

I've passed out on two flights, for a few minutes. Waking up later disoriented. Certain that my husband thought I had fallen asleep. On another, the last time I flew, I became so overheated before the plane even left the tarmac that one of the stewards draped wet towels over me. It helped. Don't look forward to flying, being strapped into a seat, in a tiny space.

 

[dragoncat16]

Her disability was not "hidden". She made it very clear to the crew what her problem was, and they decided to kick her off the flight instead of accommodating her needs, which they could easily have done. Then, to add insult to injury, they claimed that they were "trying to act in the best interests of the customer". It would almost be funny if it weren't so completely wrong.

 

[dragoncat16]

Whenever I fly, I use sound cancelling earphones. I can't tolerate the noise otherwise. I get migraines and also I feel sick. The earphones even help before the flight in blocking out all the idiots who make so much noise conversing with the person in the seat next to them.

Why they have to have the announcements so much louder than whatever you have set the volume to, I will never figure out. I usually have the volume as low as it will go and I can hear the movie or whatever just fine, and then when they come on to make some stupid announcement it's on the highest volume setting and I freak out because loud sudden noises make me violently angry sometimes. Why can't they just have the announcements at the volume setting you chose? It's not like I really need to hear about all the duty-free specials at 200 dB.

 

[pjcnet]

This whole incident all sounds really bad from the report, however since we weren't actually there we don't know the exact details of what truly went happened so we can only partially speculate and despite the vast majority of us here being supporters of the rights of aspies we need to try to look at this with neutrality and with an open mind.

Firstly I can understand how distressed the lady with aspies must have been and it does sound like the flight crew didn't have too much understanding of aspies, especially by saying, "It’s not noisy at all" as obviously what's not noisy to an NT isn't necessarily not noisy and also very distressing to someone with aspies. Demanding that she moves seats back to where the noise was adversely affecting her again would have caused her a lot of distress and she would have almost certainly felt very misunderstood and disbelieved, rightfully wanting to complain. It's speculation, but from personal experience this distress could well have been misinterpreted as aggression when she most likely did try to complain. If there was a seat available in the quiet area then it was wrong of Easyjet to refuse in this situation and if they had been better educated with a much better understanding of aspies the whole adverse situation would had most probably been avoided at this stage.

In defence of Easyjet, they cannot take any risks or even the slightest chance when it comes to a flight, if the lady was having a "meltdown" which they most likely didn't fully understand, I speculate that they believed it was best to remove her for health and safety reasons for herself and for others. Being asked to leave would have obviously caused her a lot more distress and I speculate that this would have made her behavior much worse in the eyes of an NT which may have made her "appear" even more aggressive, hence why it most likely escalated to the police being called, also we don't know whether she refused to leave in the heat of it all (I can certainly understand her doing this under the circumstances). I can only imagine how bad the lady felt, now she would be greatly embarrassed, forced off her flight, her planned routine was now totally in jeopardy which would had caused a lot more stress with aspies and she would most likely had been frightened of being arrested too (we don't know how well the police themselves handled the situation, but if Easyjet insisted that they wanted her removed from the flight they would have had no option to comply so we can't really blame the individual officers for doing their job).

In conclusion the whole unfortunate incident would probably have been avoided if Easyjet had simply better educated their flight staff. It is positive that the company stated that they were working with the National Autistic Society and the Alzheimer’s Society to help people with "hidden disabilities" who needed extra help when travelling, which at least shows that they acknowledge that further training is required, but only time will show whether this has been truly effective. I still think Easyjet should apologise to the lady concerned and offer her compensation for the stress and inconvenience caused by the whole incident.