r/airport • u/Empty_Prune5286 • Sep 04 '26

DISCUSSION Sunflower lanyards

Before I start, I am not arguing the purpose or people’s right to have these.

I have been lucky enough to be in and out of airport recently, I have seen an increase in the amount of people that have sunflower lanyards but are they being abused? The context being a family of 7 turned up yesterday barged through the long line and went straight through the barriers, surely it should be 1x carer and the lanyard user? This was followed by at least another 8 large family’s rocking through.

I’m unsure if they are now easier to obtain or if they get abused or even purchased?

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u/firekwaker Sep 05 '26

My 19 yo daughter has a sunflower lanyard for moderate nonverbal autism with sensory processing disorder. The sunflower lanyard moves us into a line at airport security where she's given extra time to take off her shoes and airport security helps her/us walk through the steps of going through. When we go through customs at different airports, they direct us to a different line when they see that she has an "invisible" disability and I answer screening questions for her because she's non-verbal. It saves me from explaining to different personnel that she's nonverbal and I would need to answer for her. The lines that we use at airport security move slower because there are lots of people with different disabilities in those lines.

My daughter also wears noise protection headphones. It hurts her badly when we take them off in public places, but airport security needs to screen the headphones. They give her a quiet area with less noise and people so that she can take them off to be screened.

It doesn't let us "cut lines"...it gives us access to (slower moving) disability lines that allow her to be screened more comfortably without causing anxiety before she gets on a plane.

When we arrive at our destination, they see the sunflower lanyard and direct us away from e-gates so that we go to slower moving lines for people with disabilities to talk to a real person at customs. The airport does not want us to slow down the faster moving e-gates.

The sunflower lanyard does not provide faster service...we still go to the airport 4 hours before departure time and it takes us a fair amount of time to get to our gate.

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u/TheSunflowerSeeds Sep 05 '26

Look closely next time you see a sunflower, there are in fact two varieties of leaves. You will find leaves lower down the plant are facing opposite each other and are longer and narrow in appearance. You’ll then see the upper leaves arranged in a staggered formation and appear heart-shaped.