Does plane travel stress out your family? Miami airport suggests taking these steps
Traveling through the airport can be stressful, with long TSA lines, crowded waiting areas and occasional flight delays.
And for families with sensitive children, the bustling and loud airport can be even more overwhelming.
To make air travel easier on everyone, Miami International Airport offers services including tours to help kids who might experience sensory overload get used to traveling.
MIA recently led a tour with American Airlines and nonprofit Easterseals South Florida for neurodivergent students, showing them what it’s like to fly. The students attend an Easterseals school that focuses on autism spectrum disorder, and learning challenges such as attention disorder.
“It’s really important for us to expose our students to the practice of traveling safely, securely, without complications and helping them understand and become familiar with an environment that is foreign to them and also alleviating any fears, any sensory input that might be challenging for them,” said Pietro Bonacossa, the vice president of development for Easterseals South Florida.
During the tour, kids went up to the ticket booth to get their boarding pass, and shuffled through TSA, putting their bags in bins, walking through the metal detectors, boarding the plane. Some lucky kids like Kyler Silva and Daniel Espinal even got to relax in first class and get a tour of the cockpit.
“This is amazing! I love it,” Kyler said while fluffing his pillow in first class.
Here are some tips to help your family:
Request MIA sunflower lanyard
Parents can email Miami International Airport to request a free sunflower lanyard to have their children wear it while at the airport and while traveling. The lanyards are meant to be a discreet and voluntary way to notify employees at more than 200 airports and 17 airlines in the world that a passenger has an invisible disability such as autism, hearing loss, and PTSD and may need “extra help, understanding, or just more time,” according to Hidden Disabilities Sunflower.
To request a lanyard, email ADAcoordinator@miami-airport.com. Include your full name and the address of where you want the lanyard to be delivered. Make sure to request the lanyard with time.
TIP: You can write the child’s information, including parent contact info, on the lanyard in case you get separated. And if you ever travel out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, sunflower lanyards are available there too.
Tour the airport
The Miami airport offers tours several times a year. You can find information on how to register for a tour on the airport’s website. If you have upcoming travel plans or can’t make it to the next tour, there’s another alternative: Do an online tour.
MIA has an online photo book parents can look at with their kids to show them what to expect, including ticketing, walking through a metal detector at TSA and boarding the plane.
TIP: TSA also has a program called TSA Care that can help make the screening process smoother for passengers with disabilities and medical conditions. Parents can call TSA Cares 72 hours prior to traveling to ask for assistance at the checkpoint or if they have any questions about TSA screening, policies or procedures. To learn more, visit tsa.gov/travel/tsa-cares
Use multi-sensory rooms
MIA has quiet rooms designed to help calm and relax travelers with autism and other cognitive or developmental disabilities. Parents can bring their kids here to help relax them while waiting for their flight. The rooms, referred to at the airport as multi-sensory rooms, are post-security in Concourse D, next to checkpoint 4 and post-security in the H-J connector. The rooms are open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
For Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who has two children on the autism spectrum, the sunflower lanyards, airport tours and and multi-sensory rooms are a push in the right direction to make air travel more inclusive for families.
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“A lot of families buy an airplane ticket, cross their fingers and wish for the best,” Regalado, a long-time advocate for children and adults with disabilities whose daughter attends Easterseals Academy, told the Miami Herald.
“They don’t know that these resources are available. We want them to be able to travel, we want them to know that MIA is a safe space for them,” she said. “And the people that work here are trained to deal with individuals that are neurodivergent. So it’s really important if we’re going to be an inclusive county to have inclusive transportation.”
Check your airline for accommodations
Airlines also offer a variety of accommodations for people with disabilities, including early boarding. Visit your airline’s website to learn more. Contact the airline with any questions you might have in the weeks leading up to your flight.
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For more tips
Visit MIA’s website to learn more about its accessibility services.
