Persons with disabilities (PDLs) have a lot of mobility these days. They can go to shopping malls and travel to distant places with public transportation made accessible to them. 

PDLs can take the plane and fly abroad. For wheelchair-bound Michaela Benthaus, she went to the most distant place a PDL could go. She injured her spine in 2018. Despite her handicap, she flew with other space tourists to the Karman line aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft on 20 December. That was the border of the atmosphere and space, about 100 kilometers above Earth. 

Upon reaching that point, where the space tourists floated in zero gravity, the spacecraft glided back to Earth and safely landed in Texas, USA. 

Many people in wheelchairs fly frequently. Airlines have recorded a 30 percent yearly increase in wheelchair assistance requests at bigger airports, according to the International Air Transport Agency, a trade group representing airlines around the world, Fox News reports. 

Wheelchairs on request

Airlines provide wheelchairs to passengers upon request, but the assistance has its downside. Twenty-five wheelchair passengers held up the boarding process, a passenger, Carlos Gomez, told The Wall Street Journal (TWSJ).

“It makes an already hectic experience of flying even slower,” Gomez said, according to TWSJ. 

In a Reddit discussion, users exposed the so-called “Jetway Jesus” and “miracle flight,” referring to passengers who use wheelchairs not because of mobility issues. 

“People fake mobility issues, arrive at the boarding gate in wheelchairs, [then] secure better treatment and better seats,” one of the Reddit users said, Fox News reports.

The user added that such line dodgers board planes early, then walk off their planes unassisted once they land at their destinations, according to Fox News. 

Gary Leff, a Texas-based travel industry expert, told Fox News that frivolous wheelchair requests hurt those with a real need for one by “waiting longer to deplane, or waiting on the jet bridge for a wheelchair to show up,” with not enough airport workers to assist them.