“We would have liked Air France to make our life easier”: the parents of the very premature baby deprived of a plane … – BFMTV

Léon was born in Nice three months ago, at six months pregnant. This week, this son of a Parisian couple was to be repatriated for an urgent eye operation. But due to lack of paper, Air France’s Nice-Paris remained inaccessible to him. Her parents, Vanina and Nicolas, gave their account of the events to our antenna this Friday.

Departure Monday November 8 rather than Tuesday November 9, and at 10:30 am instead of 1:20. Nothing went as planned during the very first trip in the short life of Léon, very premature three months old, repatriated to Paris from Nice this week for an urgent eye operation.

If he was initially to reach the capital by plane, Air France refused to board him because of his lack of identity papers. To the dismay of the Nice University Hospital, which finally took it upon themselves to transport him by ambulance, and to his parents who recount their misadventure on our antenna this Friday. The airline assures for its part that it was ready to request an exemption from the authorities to facilitate the trip.

The story of a quack

The child of Vanina Martinez and Nicolas Lejeune was born on July 27. He surprised his parents in Paris in their Nice resort. It must be said that Leon put great effort into it by being born just six months pregnant. The result: an infant weighing barely 530 grams and too fragile to leave the hospital on the Riviera.

Thus, after having finished the summer there at their son’s bedside, Vanina and Nicolas are still starting their fall in Nice. However, last week, an event upsets the fragile balance around little Leon.

“There was an eye exam that was not good,” explains Vanina, his mother: “The hospital asked us to repatriate him to be operated on fairly quickly.”

The Nice University Hospital immediately turned to Air France. The company offers one of its Nice-Paris on Tuesday, November 9. But the organization does not take long to get stuck. “The quack was on the administrative. Quickly, we were told that it was not going to be possible since Leon had no identity paper,” recalls his father, Nicolas Lejeune.

“He hasn’t left the hospital since he was born, he’s been hospitalized for three and a half months and he needed an identity card. It’s a bit complex to provide and so we ended up – to after the hospital – facing an airline that was not wavering, “he explains.

The company’s reaction

However, as of Thursday on Twitter, the company disputes this version, arguing another vision.

“There was no denied boarding. The transport of the baby was scheduled for 9/11, the trip was canceled at the request of the CHU, which had already carried out the transport by land. Air France was ready to request a waiver with the authorities on the identity documents to be provided to allow the child to travel by plane, on the date scheduled or in advance, “said the company.

“In the moment”

The couple say the company never told them it could negotiate a waiver with the authorities.

“We would have liked them to be in the moment and say to themselves: ‘Ok, they have no identity card or family record book but they have declared their son in town hall. We let them pass with a birth certificate and their lives are made easier, ”says the young mother.

Still, it is the CHU that comes to lend one of its vehicles on Monday for this journey of more than ten hours. Vanina Martinez thus points to the inertia of Air France. “They say they could have found a way to speed things up but we didn’t have time to be in the administration.”