When boarding a plane, travelers often notice the gate agent call up "zones" and offer boarding to some travelers before others. Along with being automatically included with more expensive seats and airline status, early boarding is often a perk that airlines offer to active military personnel, families with small children, people with disabilities and anyone else who may need additional help entering the plane.
To avoid the bottlenecks that occur when people board early and then have to get up when those in the same row come along, United Airlines (UAL) also recently tried experimenting with a new boarding scheme in which those with window seats are called before those sitting in the aisle (first class and status travelers still get to board first.)
Related: Southwest Airlines Tries Another Fix For a Big Boarding Problem
Such boarding rules can often displease some travelers caught at the bottom of the boarding hierarchy and, as USA Today's travel columnist Christopher Elliott recently observed in his column, many have been trying to get around it by playing up or outright faking disabilities.
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'I have a cane!' and some of the other ways travelers try to get early boarding
"I saw it recently while I was getting on a flight from Montevideo, Uruguay, to São Paulo," Elliott described "A man with a cane cut to the front of the line, exclaiming, 'I have a cane!' [...while] I wondered why he hadn't pre-boarded with the other passengers with disabilities."
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Elliott says that he's also heard of passengers ordering a wheelchair just for a flight, sitting in it by the gate and then throwing it out at the airport after walking off the plane at their destination.
"Disability fakers [have] always been there, but they're becoming much more common," Elliott wrote further. "Steve Gregory, a radio host from Los Angeles, knows someone who carries an inflatable splint to get early boarding privileges."
This is why so many are trying to get around boarding rules any way they can
The reasons behind the rise in trickery and sometimes outright deceit are not particularly surprising. Boarding has always been an annoying and stressful process for many while the rush of travel demand has made it even more crowded as many clamor for limited overhead space. According to Elliott, this process is also exacerbated by airlines which raised baggage fees and have been using the situation around cabin crowding to their advantage to gain profit.
"The airlines did this," he writes. "They're trying to profit from your fear of being forced to check your carry-on bag or even your fear of missing the flight altogether. And they've also managed to create a class of entitled passengers who think they deserve to be first on the plane."
For those who either want or need to board early at any cost, the options are either to pay for the privilege with a higher fare class or ticket "add-on" or simply ask a gate agent or the person in front of you. Depending on one's reasons, people may be more willing to step aside if you ask nicely "instead of brandishing a cane or an emotional support dog."
