A holidaymaker has boasted about the sneaky way she skipped to the front of a long airport queue, leaving many people fuming. Charlotte Rees, 32, tricked staff into thinking she'd broken her foot, by slipping on a protective boot at the airport. According to Charlotte, this 'trick' allowed her to get through security at Manchester Airport in just "five minutes from start to finish", with staff offering her ‘priority assistance’ on account of her 'injury'.
Charlotte and fiancé Paul Brown, 33, had been jetting off for a 10-day holiday in Majorca and didn't want to wait in the three-hour-long queue. After speeding through to the departure lounge, Charlotte pulled the boot off and discarded it by a bin in the women's toilets.
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Posting a TikTok video showing how carried out the con, small business owner Charlotte said: “I just couldn’t stand the thought of having to stand in the queues. I was very surprised it worked.
“I did feel bad for the other people waiting. But if they thought smart they could have jumped the queue too. I just thought of many different ways I could have jumped the queue, choose the boot idea in the hope it pulled off and it did.”
The 20-second video, which has clocked up more than 142,000 views, begins with Charlotte and Paul fitting the boot on her foot in the car park, before heading through security.
After getting rid of the boot, Charlotte can be seen walking unaided in a pair of white flip-flops as she flew off on holiday to enjoy her birthday celebrations. The couple can be seen giving a thumbs up to the camera as they sat down for dinner, before hopping on their flight to Palma.
The clip has prompted a variety of responses from followers, with a number of people unhappy with Charlotte's cheeky tactics, particularly as it might well block up the system for people who actually need this sort of assistance
One person described her ruse as "damn right disgusting", while another deadpanned, “Yeah, really something to brag about.”
A third person wrote: "Do you think it’s fair that people who are disabled have to live with a condition day in and day out? Whilst you just get to pick and choose when to abuse this facility when you have no genuine reason.”
However, others were decidedly less bothered about the ethical considerations of the situation, hailing the trick as “sneaky, but clever" and "genius".
A Manchester Airport spokesperson told the Mirror: “We work hard with our assisted travel provider, ABM, to ensure air travel is accessible to all and that all passengers have a smooth journey through Manchester Airport.
"Anything that undermines our ability to provide the best possible experience to those with the need for assistance is totally unacceptable and cannot be condoned.”
Have you witnessed shocking behaviour at the airport? Email us at julia.banim@reachplc.com
