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Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

bbc.co.uk

31–40 of 78 posts

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#31
post #22

Little things like this restore my faith in humanity :D

not mine. This is a big waste, what about all the other people in the world that LHR could go to a little extra trouble to help instead. The cost would pay for more ground crew, or maybe even train baggage handlers to not lose luggage quite so often. I'm all for being good to fellow humans, but as Spock said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

I get why people like arguments of this form, but they never work.

You see it all the time on Wikipedia. "If only we banned [topic speaker doesn't care about] we could finally make some progress on [topic speaker does care about]." But it ignores how people really work.

If you yell at people doing something good, they're not going to go do the other good thing you want. They're correctly going to ignore you. If you force the issue, they'll leave. Or if they can't, they'll turn into perfunctory drones.

It's not like BA's spending some large amount of money on this. I see no additional expense at all. The people doing it are doing it out of love and compassion. There's no reason to think that this will prevent them from being loving and compassionate to others. If anything, it may help other travelers, in that these people are a) developing their capacity to care about their customers as people, and b) doing something that provides much-needed variety in a parade of hurried, anxious, grumpy, entitled customers.

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#33

On the one hand, this is a wonderful and heartwarming tale. On the other hand, the Heathrow staff (many of them of Indian origin themselves) treat every brown international traveler like a probable terrorist. Heathrow could and should do a lot more to make travel a better experience for the many, rather than (only) for the special one.

There was a hint in the post about the real solution: he should've been pushed in via wheelchair on his first visit to avoid his having to be accommodated in a different way in the future. My daughter is "on the spectrum" and we try very hard to not create situations that require us to jump through hoops to avoid her autistic meltdowns. If she makes unreasonable requests, we have to say no and steer her away. For ins…

On the other hand, if we ever need to know the name of a particular dinosaur, she has us covered.

How did you communicate the "demise" of the brontosaurus?

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#34
post #7
post #4

I'm curious if things like Google Glass or any kind of AR device will help with people like this in the future. For example, if the store is a Dixon's.. modifying the signage before he walks in as to make him believe it's the HMV?

Relevant fictional short movie (6 minutes) about a future where AR is used to make people's surroundings seem better: http://vimeo.com/7306050

My god, I saw this when I was 10 years old and never found out its title but it always stayed with me. Thank you so much for sharing.

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#35
I wonder if this would at all be even considered in a US airport. I have also an unusual condition that falls under ADA protection, and have gotten into the position of having to ask for (what I thought was very reasonable, but unusual in so far as accommodation requests go) accommodation and was basically red-taped for 6 months before someone finally told me nothing could be done, short of me bringing in someone to sue them. I wonder if the UK is better about disability accommodation in general or if I was just incredibly unlucky?

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you intend to get from the "particularly rude staff"? It's likely there is nothing they can help you with: you get a seat on the flight you paid for, and a voucher for future travel if they can't provide that seat. They have no other obligations and I'm not really sure what people demand. I'll agree on the gate thing, though. They really want you to sit around in that god damned shopping mall for as long as p…

One example... many airlines have a one bag policy, in most airports if you have an extra camera bag or small handbag, the staff will politely ask you to put it inside the bigger one or most of the time let you off, in London you can guarantee somebody will shout at you for it. It's not one particular thing, it's the general feel of the airport.

Yes, this is something I notice a lot on frequent flyer forums: people being mad because today they didn't get an exception they usually get. Once you let the rules slide once, people are outraged that you don't let it happen every time.

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#37
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So unfair isn't it? Clearly disabled children and their parents have had it too good for too long.

Actually Heathrow is a terrible airport. I had a connecting flight through there and swore I'll get on a scrappy prop plane via Djibouti first before doing that again. The security "might" be impressive, but often there's no real coordination so I've felt this is largely theater. I was wandering around while looking for the security office and not once was I stopped and asked where I was going. No one knew where the…

nope - that's right on. you only missed the 40 minute bus rides between terminals.

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#38
I'm glad they are working on this for this kid because otherwise its the worst airport ever:

- 20 minute bus rides between TERMINALS - Then its time for the queues from hell.

- Also, a landing card is required for transit to Ireland. (But no where else.)

- Time for another queue. Just cause.

- You must take a subway to get anywhere in Terminal 5.

- Making a connection? Be prepared for total confusion on where to go, which terminal your flight is in, and which gate its at.

- Terminal 5 is nice looking, the rest are claustrophobic ghettos.

- Watch the movie Brasil.

Re: Heathrow Airport recreates departure day 4x a year for young man with autism

#39
Well, if he were from Syria, he'd be even better off. He'd have a dictator and a bunch of terrorists recreate the worst day of his life every day for him. Also, his privacy would be protected, he'd never have to fear getting on the BBC website with his name and a picture.
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