travelling to delhi with autistic child
 

Hi,

First time posting here. Please ignore if I have missed out any details. If you do need more information let me know.

I'll get to the point: I will be travelling with my 3 year child to Delhi soon via AIR INDIA from London. I am super anxious about the airport environment (security queues and stuff) plus when we arrive, I just don't know what to expect. I did a basic search of the assistance section in Heathrow and they were offering services for hidden disabilities which is kind of good to know but couldn't find anything as such when I looked up the Delhi airport website. To go with that its a 9 hour flight which just gives me the chills. I just don't know what to expect. Have done a lot of searching on the internet but haven't actually seen anything related to hidden disabilities assistance related to India (AIR INDIA or Indian airports).

Has anyone ever made a similar journey with their disabled child via AIR INDIA?

Thanks

welcome to ft danish09....what kind of assistance are you looking for????

there are services available in del like a meet & greet service....they receive you when you exit the plane, take you in an electric buggy to the immigration area, help with your bags at baggage claim & finally escort you to your car or taxi....

Use 'Allways' iin Delhi, they will take care of you (for a fee) if you need special help. That said the arrival in DEL is rather calm, you have to walk a rather long open walkway to get to immigration and stand in line for a while depending on what nationality you are. Indians are not very sensitive to autistic children in particular but very understanding and accomodating for children.

Take a look at this section for more tips:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-children-221/
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/disability-travel-224/

thats helpful, never knew what meet and greet was! been to the airport couple of times and always came up to this meet and greet and was always wondering what it was.

thanks for letting me know

Amazing! thanks a lot for your help. the links help. On a side note I was looking at the video on the delhi airport website. They give a very good view of what one should expect on arrival. though I am still a bit sceptical on how long the queue in immigration will be, since my family has different passports than me. I am kind of worried that they will ask us to split based on Nationality. Don't wanna leave my wife with 2 very young children.

Families are never split up.

thanks for getting back

We have autistic boy too and he is always OK with the flights. It is worse when it comes to queueing in the airports or any other queueing in a crowd. I mean he can vomit or generally feels unwell. So although he behaves OK and looks fully ft - and doesn't need a wheelchair (he would refuse it) - we always book assistance. Just to avoid queues.

I too am worried about the queues. Iv got input from other members regarding the meet and greet and I guess booking assistance makes sense.

...and in this way you reminded me we have to do it soon too - for our flights in May. Thank you :)