The boss of the UK's biggest airport has slammed a social media hack which suggests passengers can beat lengthy airport queues by pretending they need special wheelchair assistance. A recent TikTok post showed a holidaymaker faking a foot injury to be fast-tracked through an airport.
John Holland-Kaye, boss of Heathrow Airport, told LBC that some passengers are "using wheelchair support to get through the airport faster", adding it was "the wrong thing to do". Earlier this year, a holidaymaker returning from Ibiza posted a clip of him pretending to be suffering from a foot injury and unable to walk without assistance to skip queues.
@WolfJenko wrote: "Faked hurting my leg to get through security faster and onto the plane back from Ibiza."
Mr Holland Kaye said: "We do have as many people now working in our passengers requiring support team as we had before the pandemic. We've seen demand has gone up significantly,"
"For passengers requiring wheelchair support, we have more demand than we had before the pandemic. Why is that happening? Some of this is because people are using the wheelchair support to try and get FastTrack through the airport, and we need to protect that for the people who most need help.
"If you go on TikTok that is one of the travel hacks people are recommending - please don't do that we need to protect the service for the people who need it most."
The airport chief claimed around half of those passengers requesting assistance only did so when they were onboard their flight instead of organising the help in advance. He advised passengers who “really need the service” to let Heathrow know “well in advance so we can make sure there are enough people there to meet your needs.”
Other airports have reported a rise in the number of passengers requesting special assistance, with Birmingham reporting mobility support bookings have risen by a third. A spokesperson said: “Current requests for assisted travel at BHX are a third higher than before the pandemic. We can only speculate as to the reasons why this is.
“We want to ensure air travel is accessible for everyone. We encourage only those who need the assisted travel service to use it.”
However Fazilet Hadi, head of policy at Disability Rights UK, said that while a few "foolish people" would exacerbate the problem, it was a "long-running issue." She said: "There probably are a few rogue passengers but I'm not prepared to believe the problem is caused by a few foolish people. The problem is much more serious than this."
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