Emirates forces epileptic boy to disembark in Dubai: Report

According to the report, Eli, the 17-year-old son of the Euronews journalist Isabelle Kumar, had boarded a flight on Wednesday from Dubai to France, the final leg of a long-haul journey from New Zealand via Australia. But when Kumar – who had phoned the airline in advance to ensure they were aware of her son’s needs – asked for a seat with a vacant seat next to them in case he had a seizure, Emirates staff asked the family to show the medical certificate.

Emirates has reportedly forced a disabled teenager and his family to disembark from a plane because he has epilepsy, despite the fact he had a medical certificate and clearance to fly, said The Guardian.

According to the report, Eli, the 17-year-old son of the Euronews journalist Isabelle Kumar, had boarded a flight on Wednesday from Dubai to France, the final leg of a long-haul journey from New Zealand via Australia. But when Kumar – who had phoned the airline in advance to ensure they were aware of her son’s needs – asked for a seat with a vacant seat next to them in case he had a seizure, Emirates staff asked the family to show the medical certificate.

“I couldn’t initially find the certificate, But I called the doctor, got them to email the certificate which she did immediately,” she told The Guardian, adding “Eli’s doctor wanted to speak to the attendants but they refused to speak to her, refused to look at the certificate, and refused to listen to us about Eli’s needs.”

Attendants reportedly said the certificate had to be shown to ground staff, despite the fact that the family had spoken to staff at check in and at the departure gate about their son’s disability. The family – Kumar and her husband also have 10-year-old twins – was then reportedly told to disembark and they threatened to call the police if they did not leave the plane.

Elli added, “We managed to get him off OK, and there was an emergency medical team waiting. They thought he’d had a medical emergency, but we said he was fine. They couldn’t understand why we had been kicked off. They immediately agreed he was fine to fly, but we were not allowed to re-board. The lack of humanity was really shocking.”

Kumar reportedly said that the incident had left her children distraught.

Removing our family from your flight because of our son’s #epilepsy has received worldwide condemnation. Will you now issue a real apology ⁦⁦@emirates⁩ acknowledging that passengers w/ disabilities should not be treated in this way. #Autism ⁦ https://t.co/IqNw2YBro9

— Isabelle Kumar (@Isabelle_kumar) July 27, 2018

Further, she informed the newspaper that her family continued to be treated badly once in the airport and that there was “no contrition” by the airline. One customer services manager suggested they fly to Vienna, despite the fact that they live in Lyon. Finally a different Emirates employee suggested that the family fly to Geneva the next day.

“We were just dumped in an airport, we had to battle to get a hotel and it was only after there was a Twitter storm that they suddenly started treating us correctly,” Kumar added.

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