2021/08/04
ANA is committed to providing safe and comfortable flights for everyone, with the aim of realizing "delightful, kind-hearted and comfortable skies for everybody".
As part of our efforts, we offer "ANA Sorapass Class (Flight Support Class)" for students of special-needs schools as an advance lesson when they take ANA flights for school trips and group travel. In 2017, we received a call from a teacher at a special-needs school asking if we could do a pre-lesson, and in order to respond to the call, staffs who received the call directly went to the school and conducted the class, which was the beginning of the "Sorapass Class". Currently, we have two types of programs: one for students who use wheelchairs and one for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
For more information about the Sorapass Class, click ANA Sorapass Class (Flight Support Class)
We hand out certificates to the students of the participating schools. This certificate is in the form of a passport case, and we give it to the students with the hope that they will be able to be active in the world one day.
ANA introduces and demonstrates its "Universal Service" initiatives and "Sorapass Class" at events and lectures as a sponsor. This year, we are participating in the "Inclusion Festival "(*1) to provide an opportunity for children across Japan to travel by air.
We asked Ms Yoshimuta (from Customer Experience Management & Planning), who was in charge of the event, about her thoughts on the "Sorapass Class".
In planning the flight support class (ANA Sorapass Class), we asked which situations make passengers with disabilities feel anxious when boarding an airplane, and learned that their anxiety differs depending on the characteristics of their disabilities.For example, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are uncomfortable in unusual spaces, especially at security checkpoints, where they feel intimidated by uniformed personnel and resist the sound and contact of inspections, and wheelchair users feel uneasy about leaving their own wheelchairs in the cargo hold and getting into a rental wheelchair.
In response to the above comments, we wanted to make sure that the content of the Sorapass Class would be more in tune with the disabilities of the students, so we decided to make the simulated security inspection the main part of the curriculum for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. By experiencing the simulated security checkpoint and staff, we hope to dispel any concerns.
ANA will continue to listen closely to the voices of the customers and strive to realize "delightful, kind-hearted and comfortable skies for everybody," so that everyone can fly safely and comfortably.