BRITAIN’S busiest travel hub has blamed TikTok users for the ongoing airport chaos and claimed passengers are pretending to be disabled to avoid horrific queues during the summer getaway mayhem. Bosses at Birmingham airport also said there was a 20 per cent rise in people asking for assistance and it has had to buy more wheelchairs and take on extra staff to push them.
Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said ‘demand has significantly increased’ for travellers who require wheelchair support amid ongoing travel chaos that has left much of the UK’s aviation sector paralysed. He said users on TikTok are ‘recommending’ the ‘travel hack’ so they can skip queues at security and use fast-track lanes and get help through immigration, customs and baggage reclaim.
Disabled passengers also have the option to be transported to their gate from departures via an electric buggy. One user ‘faked hurting his leg to get through security quicker’ on a plane home from Ibiza, while another posted a ‘step-by-step’ guide on social media showing how to make the ‘hack’ convincing.
Asked by LBC’s Nick Ferrari about the “absolute disgrace” of 20 wheelchair passengers stuck in an allocated area of Heathrow Terminal 3 last week with no air conditioning, Mr Holland-Kaye insisted: “We do have as many people now working in our passengers requiring support team as we had before the pandemic.” But he added: “We’ve seen demand has gone up significantly. For passengers requiring wheelchair support we have more demand than we had before the pandemic.” He said: “Some of this is because people are using the wheelchair support to try to get fast-tracked through the airport, that is absolutely the wrong thing to be doing, we need to protect that for the people who most need help.