Heathrow boss slams passengers using viral hack to skip queues

HEATHROW has blamed a TikTok craze for some of the chaos seen at the airport this summer.

The airport’s chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, said that pretending to need a wheelchair was labelled as a “travel hack” on the social media site, for people hoping to skip queues.

Wheelchair support is provided by airports to passengers who are unable to walk long distances, because of illness, age or disability, and they are taken to the front of security queues so as not to hold up the staff accompanying them.

But the service has been taken advantage of by travellers feigning injury in order to queue jump.

Mr Holland-Kaye said this had brought an increase in the number of people asking for wheelchair support, which had resulted in a shortage.

He told : “For passengers requiring wheelchair support we have more demand than we had before the pandemic.

“Why is that happening? Some of this is because people are using the wheelchair support to try to get fast-track through the airport.

“That is absolutely the wrong thing to be doing.

“We need to protect that for the people who most need help.

“If you go on TikTok you’ll see that that is one of the travel hacks that people are recommending. Please don’t do that.”

A video showing a passenger skipping queues at Ibiza airport by feigning injury to get a wheelchair has been viewed 2.5 million times on TikTok.

The man is shown standing up and walking away after the flight.

Mr Holland-Kaye added that about half of arriving passengers who request assistance only do so once they are on the plane.

He urged people who “really need the service” to let Heathrow know “well in advance so we can make sure there are enough people there to meet your needs”.

Mr Holland-Kaye also claimed that delays at security desks were worsened by holidaymakers bringing too much make-up.

The Heathrow boss laid the blame at people not wanting to be separated from their cosmetics.

He added: “They have got more bags, and more liquids in their bags so that takes a little bit longer.

“A lot of people are put off from checking in all of their make-up for example because they are worried about whether their bag will make the journey with them.

“The DfT regulations are that people can only travel with one one-litre transparent bag, and people tend not to think of makeup as being prohibited from travel, so there’s a lot of education that we need to do with people.”

Heathrow has also warned that their passenger caps could remain in place until 2024.

There was some positive news for the airport however as a British Airways workers strike was called off.