How are they getting away with that?
It’s an oddly familiar scene: you’re waiting for your boarding group to be called at your flight’s gate, watching a wheelchair bound passenger dodge lines and board the plane first. Yet, once the plane lands, you’re scratching your head at that same flyer walking unassisted off the flight, no wheelchair in sight.
You’re not seeing things — it’s supposedly a sneaky little travel scam that social media users are nicknaming “jetway Jesus” or “miracle flights.”
Ask for a wheelchair, get escorted to your gate, board before the rest of your flight, and snag an overhead bin before everyone else does — it sounds like a traveler’s dream.
It seems that many gutsy travelers are getting away with this because they’re not asked for proof of any disability by an airline.
To get this VIP treatment, a flyer simply has to ask their airline for assistance, either a few days before their scheduled flight or once they’re checking in at the airport.
As stated on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s website, “When a passenger with a disability requests assistance from an airline to move through the airport, the airline is required to promptly provide the requested assistance.”
And technically, the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) prohibits an airline from side-eyeing a passenger, thinking they may be misusing the service.
“In situations where there is uncertainty about the access needs of a passenger, a carrier may ask the passenger for credible verbal assurance that the passenger needs the service and how the service assists with the passenger’s disability,” the U.S. DOT’s site states.
While many are accusing their seatmates of faking their disability, others in the r/todayilearned forum on Reddit are defending those who are seen in a wheelchair one minute but then walking the next.
“…you also have people who can walk a shortish distance but can’t walk the entire way across an airport. My mom is currently dealing with this sort of thing — she can walk a short ways just fine, but if she walks too far, she gets crippling pain in her leg. So yeah, last time we flew together, she took a wheelchair to the gate, but she was perfectly capable of getting off the plane on her own,” one commenter pointed out.
“It may look like that when you see someone like me wheeled up there but what you don’t know is that I don’t have the strength or stamina to walk all the way through the airport without a significant health issue. Standing in line is also a real serious problem because I can’t stand for that long. I can stand and walk, but not well and not for long,” someone else wrote.
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