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I want to invite experiences / advice with regards to travelling with a special needs child from Saudi ( Dammam) to India ( Nagpur / Mumbai ) . In specific seating arrangements, carrying them from transit, if we need to get their special chair in transit transfer. Any special seating arrangements considerations in flights.

Thank you

sportsguy1

What age is the child? What type of chair will they have for the journey? And will they be using a car seat on the flight?

If there is medical equipment such as oxygen, and/or large items such as a powered wheelchair, then contacting the airlines you’re flying with will probably be the best first step to understand how to plan your journey. There are often policies and rules which need addressing, and we would suggest doing the same for the airports.

Our daughter doesn’t have any special needs at all, so we don’t know if it’s of any help, but we traveled with her in her stroller until she was 11 years old, and in her car seat until 13 years old.

We found the key to making any journey as easy as possible was consistency. Obviously, this is not always possible, but minimizing disruption is a useful planning goal as it helps to prioritize certain things which in turn helps make other decisions.

One way you might wish to think about planning is to consider how the stroller/chair (and car seat if you have one) can help you, and not simply as essential things which you’ll have to carry/move. At first, when she was a toddler, we took our daughter’s stroller for safety, but we quickly learned the other advantages: it provided a consistent place for her to sit and relax, it helped to carry our hand luggage, and we minimized any risk of it being damaged. We always made sure to use her stroller as much as we could through the airport; the only times she wasn’t in it were going through security and getting on and off the plane. While it might seem a lot to take a stroller and a car seat, we found it worked well as it meant the only large/heavy thing we had to carry was her car seat. Most importantly, we always buckled her in properly so we knew she was safe (we’d seen too many kids jump out of strollers, tip them over, etc.). We also never had any problems when gate checking her stroller – even when we got the Maclaren Major which is much larger than a regular stroller (and had a separate footplate which had to be removed and kept with it).

We were fortunate that our daughter traveled very well (most of the time!), but some kids will obviously not want to sit in a stroller, so it may take some working out what works best for your situation. If you're concerned about that, we suggest thinking about things which you’ll know will keep them happy as that helps the consistency throughout the journey. We found that a favorite toy when she was younger, and a favorite book when she was older would keep her perfectly happy in her stroller (even though it could be a few hours at a time). Consistency was the key to making it work for us and keeping her happy; prioritizing all the things which kept her happy also made handling any problems much easier and helped reinforce the rules.

For us, boarding early also made everything as easy as possible. As a parent to a special needs child you’ll undoubtedly be entitled to early boarding, and that will provide more time to get settled. Just be sure to let the airlines know you require it; often you can request it online via your booking, but it depends on the airline. Importantly, early boarding usually means you receive better attention from the cabin crew if you need anything; once everyone else has begun to board, that’s far less likely.

We used early boarding as much as we could. Her car seat was very big and not always easy to get installed on aircraft seats, so the additional time was essential. The other advantage is that there’s more space if needed. While we installed her car seat, she would sit in the aisle seat opposite as it meant she still had her own space which again helped keep things consistent for her. Also, if you’re using a car seat, we suggest prioritizing that before anything else (such as getting things out from bags before stowing them), and getting them buckled in and settled. We found that early boarding can mean anything from 30 to 10 minutes before others, and when we had less time we would often still be sorting out the last few things when others were boarding. Getting her car seat sorted first meant she was comfortable and back in her own space as soon as possible, and importantly protected her from any bags, jackets, scarves, cushions, etc. being moved about by others.

Regarding using the car seat in flight, most airlines usually require child seats be placed in window seats for safety reasons, so there is the possibility of not having a choice about the layout. That said, in our experience, some airlines accepted a car seat in a middle seat in some circumstances. It’s best to check the policy of the airline before flying (even if you can’t find it on their website, it’s likely worth calling the airline). Also, you may want to consider having a copy of the airline’s policy on child seats to hand (on your phone or printed out). In our experience cabin crew hardly ever know their own airline’s policy regarding car seats, but most will be fine if you have the policy to show them and if you can point out the FAA approval sticker on the child seat.

Should you have a choice about which seat you can install the car seat, we would recommend the middle seat. When we had the choice, our daughter always preferred being in the middle. One thing that’s worth considering is how much your car seat might reposition your child relative to you. While much more comfortable and much safer, being in her car seat meant our daughter was a bit higher and further forward than either of us and was not able to lean forward. Therefore, whenever she was in the window seat, and wanted whichever one of us was in the aisle seat, she had to ask whoever was in the middle first which wasn’t very practical. Also, being in the middle meant she could more easily reach the drinks or food herself when they were handed out, which was harder in the window seat as she couldn’t reach as far or lean over.

If you have a choice, and are planning on having the car seat forward-facing, we would suggest the middle seat if possible for the reasons above.

We used much the same process when disembarking, only in reverse. The idea was the same – to keep things as consistent as possible. It’s worth checking with the airlines and airports what their policy is on returning gate checked strollers. In our experience, we almost always had ours returned at the jet bridge, but on some occasions we had to collect it at the reclaim carousels.

We’d always wait for almost everyone else to leave the aircraft, then gather our stuff before unbuckling her; that way she stayed comfortable with her/toy book while we packed everything up as it was before. We were often the last to leave the plane and while we always made sure to be as quick as we could, we never once had any cabin crew hurry us off the plane.

You might wish to also consider a stroller travel bag (if one is available for your stroller/chair). We got one for the last few years our daughter was in her stroller, and it proved really useful. If your stroller/chair has detachable parts, the bag will be a valuable help in keeping everything together. Our daughter’s Maclaren Major had a separate footrest, which before we had the bag, we had to take with us and put in the overhead bin. The bag meant it just stayed with the pushchair which made things much simpler. It also kept her stroller much cleaner. The other big advantage we found is that it stopped any airline or ground staff (however well-meaning or not) trying to open or mistreat the stroller. The possible disadvantage is that it will take a few more minutes to get the chair/stroller setup, but if your familiar with it, this isn’t too big of an issue. For our daughter’s stroller it was simply a question of unfolding it, clipping the footrest in place, and buckling her in - taking it out of a travel bag added less than a minute to the process. If you’ve got others with you, then an extra pair of hands to fold the bag up and carry it while you set up the chair/stroller practically cancels the extra time needed anyway. By the time our daughter was 8 or 9 years old, we used to fold the travel bag up while she buckled herself in, which virtually canceled any extra time taken, so it’s definitely worth it in our experience.

We understand this message isn’t special needs-specific, and that it doesn’t help with the specific airports you're visiting. Nonetheless, we hope the advice is useful somehow, and good luck with the journey!