My family and I take trips every summer, and this year we are going to Santa Monica. I would hate to trek it from Detroit to LA, so I've decided to put Doodle on his first airplane ride. WHich airlines is best? I was thinking Delta, have any of you tried them?
There are two programs for families with children with ASD, that you can do a pretrial run. I believe it is AIR which is expanding to a lot of airports and the Philadelphia airport also has one. They are free
Whether or not you will be allowed to use the priority lane or skip to the front of a single lane TOTALLY depends on which airport and even which airline. TSA may run security but the airlines run the lanes leading up to them. I've found it's about 50/50 whether it's allowed.
Talk to TSA before flying to skip the line but you'll still go through security. I'm surprised more people don't fake autism to cut in line because you don't have to bring medical evidence with you but we did anyway. We brought two car seats but left them in the car. They were too much to carry plus our bags.
http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/what-ex...
So far our experience with airlines has been pretty good. The best for us though was South West Airlines, mainly because there is no assigned seating so when we preboard we are able to pick the best location for us and our daughter. Also, their flights don't really seem to overbook so it was very easy for us to bring her carseat on with us for her to sit in, even though we didn't pay for that seat.
I believe almost all airlines will let you pre-board if you let them know you have a young child with autism. But other than that, there are no special accommodations. Look into other strategies from the trip itself (do a search) which can be challenging for some kids and not others. We didn't have any issues (headphones and ipad were helpful).