On the other hand, airports now are so large, and the terminals built with misanthropically meandering paths, that the transfer times between gates can exceed 20 minutes at a brisk pace.<p>On a recent international arrival at JFK (I think) I had to walk what felt like at least a mile through long corridors, past moving walkways that were all disabled. Even though they don't need wheelchairs, there's no way my grandparents would be able to walk that comfortably, pulling their suitcases along, especially with no benches to stop and rest.
It's worth being skeptical of claims that people are faking disability. For example, there is a common belief that wheelchairs are for people who can't walk, but a lot of wheelchair users can walk, just not necessarily without pain or for long periods. I don't trust airline staff's subjective impressions to be well-informed.<p>On that note, stories constantly circulate of airlines breaking or losing wheelchairs through improper handling. It seems like wheelchair users dread having to fly because there's a huge risk their mobility device will be destroyed after their flight.
Pretty nasty coordination problem. I'm somewhat surprised so many people are willing to defect though, in the face of what I assumed were pretty strong cultural norms against getting in a wheelchair and pretending to be crippled. I know a bunch of people joke about the west being over or whatever, but this is some of the strongest evidence I've seen. 25 people claiming to need a wheelchair on what I assume is a flight of less that 300?!?
People are all too eager to judge or enforce against handicapped space violaters so why would the wheelchair situation be any different.<p>I guess unlike parking theres technically no law being violated and people are afraid to speak out on a plane since the consequences are higher for any conflict on board an airplane.
“…a flight with 25 passengers who require [wheelchairs] to board turns into an arriving flight in which only five need the service. In the airline industry, we call these ‘Jesus flights’ because so many passengers seem to be ‘healed’ during their flight.”<p>Extraordinary. It reminds me of people constantly cutting in traffic to get to their destination a total of 30 seconds earlier (we are all at the mercy of traffic light cycles, buddy). Except even less sensible, since the plane only departs when everyone has boarded anyway.
> The easiest way to immediately fix the problem is to have those requiring more time to board go last. Yes, after everyone else has boarded. This would remove the temptation for those who are faking an injury and would mean far fewer wheelchair requests.<p>> The problem with this is the Department of Transportation mandates that airlines board those requiring additional time first. Absent a change, this boarding backlog is only going to get worse — much worse.<p>The DOT fixing that would be the ideal solution to this. Failing that, wouldn't a few simple rule changes by the airlines completely eliminate the problem of people who don't need wheelchairs demanding them anyway just to get priority boarding?<p>1. Give everyone tags for their carryons that say what boarding group they'd be in if they weren't extra-time preboarders. If the overhead bins fill up, take out any carryons that don't have a tag from a group that's already started to board and gate-check them.<p>2. Don't let anyone who requested a wheelchair deplane without waiting for it.<p>3. On airlines without assigned seating (Southwest), instead of only requiring that extra-time preboarders not sit in the exit row, also require that they sit as far back in the plane as possible (just at first, being allowed to move forward once the boarding group they'd be in if they weren't extra-time preboarders starts to board).
Lots of comments here about people faking.<p>There has been a large uptick in disabilities since early 2021 in the civilian workforce (ages 16+):
<a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01074597" rel="nofollow">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01074597</a><p>The sudden uptick in the trend is real.
Sums up the usefullness of social media. In order to get the social ego treatment by bording first by faking disability. Surely social media algorithms promoted this crap behavior in the first place. I suggest Social media platforms pay for the extra cost.