Nasty Tiktok videos: How to avoid queues at the airport

A tasteless tip on how to smuggle past the long airport queues and get on the plane faster is making the rounds on the social media app Tiktok. The pushers simply brazenly claim they need a wheelchair, as reported by The Guardian. This allows them to quickly get past the queues of the other passengers.

The chief executive of Heathrow Airport says in a radio interview: “We have more needs than before the pandemic for passengers who are dependent on a wheelchair. Why is that? Partly it is because people are using wheelchair assistance, to get through the airport faster. That’s the absolute wrong thing to do.” The airport boss continues: “If you go on Tiktok, you will see that this is one of the travel hacks that people recommend. Please don’t do this.”

Here are two examples of such Tiktok videos promoting this wheelchair trick:

The second of the two videos above is a veritable step-by-step guide to this “trick” that shows no respect for people who are actually dependent on a wheelchair.

Apparently, this Tiktok video, which wasn’t filmed at Heathrow, inspired some viewers to emulate it: in it, the “leading man”, who is said to have an injured foot, pokes fun at this tacky trick:

background

Long queues at London’s Heathrow Airport this summer. Apparently lack of staff is the reason for this. But the airport boss also said the delays were partly due to passengers traveling “with more baggage than usual” and failing to “check in all their makeup” before going through security.