The other day I was talking to a couple at a cafe that have been traveling for many years.  I was lamenting the very long lines I had recently encountered on a flight as well as the very small and uncomfortable seat I had on the plane.   Airport travel has seriously gone downhill as of late and the amount of standing around that one has to do really gets to you and makes you not want to travel anymore.   Airports are horrible places and to me I would imagine there are some prisons in the world that are more friendly.    

On the rare occasion that I have been able to travel business class, the experience was very different.  You get treated nicely, have your own lines that are much shorter, and the seats in the lounges are very luxurious rather than designed intentionally to be as uncomfortable as possible which seems to be the case with most of the waiting areas in airports.

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I can't afford business class though, as much as I would like to take it.   While I was talking to this couple they mentioned that because of the wife's disability which includes limited capability to walk, they are bumped up to the front of all lines and she is even pushed to her gate in a wheelchair by airline staff.  For security or insurance reasons or something, her husband is not even allowed to push her.   They were kind of chuckling about the fact that this is one magnificent benefit of being somewhat handicapped and I suppose that is nice that they are able to look at it this way.

Then I started thinking that if someone really wanted to, they could fake a disability simply to skip the lines at airports and as it turns out, people actually are doing this.   I find it despicable that someone would do this but I suppose it is the ultimately the airport and airlines' fault that people are doing this because they are responsible for airports being miserable experiences in the name of making more money.  

These people that fake a disability are called "wheelchair imposters" and apparently it is a thing all around the world.   I'll admit that I have seen some people in wheelchairs and thought to myself "there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that guy" or "he or she is too young to need a wheelchair" etc.   

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Of course this was always going to end up on something stupid like TikTok and there is a guy who's name I am not going to mention because I don't want to bring him any more attention that upon seeing a long airport line simply went outside the airport, took off his shoe and sock on one leg and hobbled back in stating to airport staff that he twisted his ankle at the hotel and it was very painful to walk.   He then received personalized service, skipped all the lines, was pushed in a wheelchair from start to finish and even got his own row on the flight.   At the end of the video he jumps out of the wheelchair and exclaimed "it is amazing what taking off one sock can accomplish for you!"   

In places like the United States and UK, people don't even need to provide any sort of proof that they have an actual disability to get this service although since fakers are on the rise, this will likely change.   

I am kind of reminded of how people abused the "emotional support animal" thing to the point where this service, that some people genuinely need, has been scrapped almost everywhere in the world.   I've never seen one of these support animals on any flight outside of the United States.   Once again, this is the airlines' fault that people ever decided to scam the system in the first place because transporting a pet on a flight is extortionately expensive UNLESS it is a support animal, then it is free.    

I have a solution for the airlines and airports:  Make travel suck less then people wont be always looking for a way to bend the rules.   There are people out there that genuinely need wheelchair assistance that might not get it because of people faking it and that is a real shame.   But people wouldn't need to do this if the airports just had a better system.  It really is absurd that someone would have to stand in line for 2-3 hours just to get on a plane.   You can't tell me that there isn't enough money to improve the system because airlines and airports are a huge business that makes billions every year.   Perhaps if they weren't so greedy people wouldn't be looking for ways to cheat the system all the time.

I recall when I was very young accompanying my father to the airport on business trips.   It was a relatively delightful experience and it wasn't at all the chore that it is today.