The manager of one particular of the world’s busiest airports has hit out at a TikTok journey “hack” aimed at skipping queues.
It entails non-disabled travellers requesting wheelchair guidance in buy to be quick-tracked by means of to their flights.
Heathrow main executive John Holland-Kaye claimed the trend was “improper”.
“For passengers demanding wheelchair assist we have much more demand from customers than we experienced ahead of the pandemic. Why is that going on? Some of this is for the reason that men and women are using the wheelchair assist to test to get speedy-track as a result of the airport. That is absolutely the mistaken thing to be executing,” he instructed radio station LBC.
“If you go on TikTok you’ll see that that is a single of the vacation hacks that men and women are recommending. You should will not do that.”
LBC host Nick Ferrari termed it “outrageous”.
A the latest TikTok video confirmed a traveller at Bristol Airport pretending to have an ankle harm, so he could skip queues at stability and examine-in.
Wolf Jenkins’ video clip, which has been viewed far more than 2 million occasions, provoked a robust response with some commentators calling it a “new small” and an “abuse of the process”. Many others known as the stunt “clever”.
Heathrow Airport is just one of a number of European hubs which has struggled to cope with an boost in travellers. Daily departing passenger numbers were being capped at 100,000 earlier this thirty day period in buy to relieve pressure. A enormous need for summer season journey coupled with a absence of pilots, cabin crew, verify-in team, and baggage handlers has viewed extended queues and vacation irritation.