{"id":7329,"date":"2015-03-02T15:24:30","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T15:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2015\/03\/02\/autistic-son-banned-from-coming-home\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T14:21:39","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T14:21:39","slug":"autistic-son-banned-from-coming-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/02\/autistic-son-banned-from-coming-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Autistic Son Banned from Coming Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Family Stranded After 11-Year-Old is \u2018Unfit-to-Fly\u2019<\/h3>\n

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A Birmingham family have claimed that they were left stranded in Turkey when their 11-year-old autistic son was labelled \u2018unfit to fly.\u2019 <\/p>\n

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Arshad Sherbaz and Selina Begum, who had spent \u00a32,300 to enjoy the Thomas Cook package holiday with disabled Mustafah and his sister Meelam, 19, were not allowed to board their return flight home after being told Mustafah needed a confirmation certificate from a doctor.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Angry dad Arshad, 41, said, \u201cThey told us we needed a doctor\u2019s note to allow him to fly from the airport and were asked to sit in another area while we watched all the other passengers board the plane. We were gobsmacked,\u2019\u2019 he recalled.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone from Thomas Cook told us that they had spoken to the pilot who had refused to let my son on the plane to fly home. They said Arshad was a safety risk and was not fit to fly. We couldn\u2019t understand. I had notified Thomas Cook before the holiday about my son\u2019s disability. The only thing I could think of was that he had a small tantrum on the flight on the way out.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mustafah, who has severe autism, communicates through sign language. Arshad said, \u201cIt had been a long day. We had missed our flight from Gatwick Airport and had been told to go back to Birmingham for another flight.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son had been awake a long time, and naturally was tired. It was the only reason I could think of why they weren\u2019t letting him fly home.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After being stopped from boarding the plane in July, the family tried to see the airport doctor but he told them they had to visit a local hospital. An ambulance was provided for transport but the parents were told they would be billed for everything.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThey strapped my son to a stretcher and we were all sitting in the back of the ambulance,\u2019\u2019 said Arshad. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t feel right. I didn\u2019t have any faith in what was going on. I saw a taxi pull up and put my family in the taxi instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Having stayed another two days and paying an extra \u00a3550, the couple and their children returned to the airport, Arshad, said neither airport nor travel firm staff asked to see the \u2018fit to fly\u2019 certificate.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all of that they never asked to see the letter,\u201d the dad said. \u201cWhen we got onto the flight we were just so thankful. Even though it was raining when we landed, we were relieved to finally be back in the UK. My son is outgoing and very flexible when it comes to travelling. It was shocking and terrible what happened, and we are still feeling the effects, months on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Family Stranded After 11-Year-Old is \u2018Unfit-to-Fly\u2019 A Birmingham family have claimed that they were left stranded in Turkey when their 11-year-old autistic son was labelled \u2018unfit to fly.\u2019 Arshad Sherbaz and Selina Begum, who had spent \u00a32,300 to enjoy the Thomas Cook package holiday with disabled Mustafah and his sister Meelam, 19, were not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}