A man accused of human trafficking his special needs daughter is speaking out, highlighting the need for training on an important issue in air travel.
Peter Espinosa, a 2 million-mile flyer with Delta Air Lines and a Diamond Medallion Member, has penned an open letter to the airline's CEO Ed Bastian. In the letter, he asks Delta to pay more attention to special needs passengers.
Espinosa frequently travels with his daughter who suffers from Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), a form of autism that causes extreme anxiety and the inability to make eye contact. Sufferers of FXS also become overwhelmed easily.
The weekend before Father's Day, Espinosa and his daughter were in first class on a flight from Minneapolis to Dallas when a flight attendant noticed the way the two were interacting. The flight attendant tried to engage with Espinosa's daughter, Rachel, but she became upset.
"During the flight our flight attendant noticed my daughter's anxiety and became focused on interacting with her," Espinosa wrote in the letter. "He kept trying to ask her direct questions, only making my daughter Rachel that much more anxious. I attempted to intervene, but he kept insisting that he needed a direct answer from her. As my daughter teared up I finally insisted and said "she cannot answer you". His reply to her was "do you only speak Spanish?" I thought this was a curious question by him. He then looked at a piece of paper in his hand and asked me if my name was Espinosa? I said yes. I am Pete Espinosa and this is my daughter Rachel. I asked why is he so intent with speaking with my daughter? and he replied he was simply doing random greetings of customers. He thanked me for being a Delta Million Mile flier and left."
Suspecting there was a chance that the woman was being trafficked, four police officers met the plane in Dallas.
"Try to imagine the look on my FXS-affected daughter when she was taken away by police officers and removed from her dad. I was taken to a nearby area to be interrogated," Espinosa said in the letter. "I now realize what it's like to be a falsely accused minority parent, fighting for my freedom, fighting for my child."
One way, Espinosa notes, that this incident could have been avoided is if his Skymiles account reflected his daughter's special needs. However, in light of the incident and the way he and his daughter were treated, Espinosa notes that better training for flight attendants on matters of special needs passengers as well as racial profiling should be a focus for airlines.
"Much has been written and said recently about racial profiling. How I know why we were asked if we speak Spanish," Espinosa wrote. "It's pretty clear to me this would not have happened if your flight attendant hadn't viewed me as Hispanic, along with preconceived negative notions that accompany this. An anxious 20-year-old girl. Accompanied by a Hispanic male, old enough to be her father. He must be a Human Trafficker."
After contacting Delta customer service, Espinosa reported that the airline advised him not to sit with his daughter on flights to avoid this type of situation in the future.
"Not only is this impractical, but it is also demeaning," wrote Espinosa. "Even special needs people have feelings. My daughter is hurt when she hears me attempt to explain and rationalize her disability to others."
Espinosa concluded the letter highlighting that he plans to choose an airline that caters more to the needs of passengers with disabilities as well as one that avoids racial profiling.
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