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Wheelchair Service at Airports · Let's Ask the Mamas!

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  Speaker 1: We got a question for American mamas. Dear mamas, have
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  Speaker 1: you seen people abusing wheelchair service at the airport?
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's ask our American mama's mama, mama.
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  Speaker 3: And joining is now we are American mama's turning out
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  Speaker 3: of and Kimberly Burlison. I can't wait to hear this
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  Speaker 3: because Lewis and I just flew a couple of differenters,
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  Speaker 3: once to New York and once to to Washingt d C.
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  Speaker 3: And we flew through Dallas Fort Worth on one of them.
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  Speaker 3: And so there was an observation I made at the airport,
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  Speaker 3: but I think that actually may relate to what this
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  Speaker 3: topic is about. So have you seen people abusing the
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  Speaker 3: wheelchair service at the airports where they say, look, if
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  Speaker 3: you need extra help, we'll get somebody there, and then
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  Speaker 3: they load you up on a cart and they go
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  Speaker 3: rolling through the airport.
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  Speaker 1: That is that a thing?
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  Speaker 4: It is a thing. And as a former flight attendant, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: I can tell you that it has always been a thing,
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  Speaker 4: but it is now out of control.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so how are people abusing the wheelchairs?
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  Speaker 4: So this is what it is. So if you need
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  Speaker 4: extra assistance, you know there's people that get wheelchairs because
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  Speaker 4: the gate agent will announce, you know, if you need
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  Speaker 4: extra time or assistance, you can come to the front
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  Speaker 4: of the line. This is before everyone else boards. You
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  Speaker 4: get to get on the plane first, so you get
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  Speaker 4: to pick where you want to put your luggage and
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  Speaker 4: it's just like perfect for you. But what happens is
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  Speaker 4: you get to your destination magically you don't need assistance.
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  Speaker 4: You can just walk right off because no one wants
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  Speaker 4: to wait because if you truly need assistant, you have
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  Speaker 4: to wait for everybody to get off the plane before
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  Speaker 4: they can get you off with the wheelchairs.
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  Speaker 1: So you can get on the plane faster, but you
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  Speaker 1: have to wait to get off the plane. The people
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  Speaker 1: who need assistants get on the plane no longer need
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  Speaker 1: the assistance to.
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  Speaker 4: Get off of it exactly. So when I was a
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  Speaker 4: flight attendant, the people that abuse this the most were
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  Speaker 4: the people from LaGuardia to Miami or Fort Lauderdale.
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  Speaker 1: So that was like that route, that route was.
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  Speaker 4: A hard route, just hard people, you know, very very needy,
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  Speaker 4: you know that kind of thing. What's happening, especially in DFW,
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  Speaker 4: is now they're finding that there is a fact there's
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  Speaker 4: a faction of people that are abusing this system. They
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  Speaker 4: all seem to be the same. I don't want to
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  Speaker 4: say what they are because I don't want a buy
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  Speaker 4: to say that, you know I'm.
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  Speaker 1: Being So it's a racial profile.
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  Speaker 4: It's a racial profiling thing, and it's the same kind
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  Speaker 4: of group that does this. And so my thought was,
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  Speaker 4: why if you need assistance, then you have a handicap sticker, Okay,
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  Speaker 4: you have something on your boarding pass or something that
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  Speaker 4: says that you are a handicapped person and you need assistance,
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  Speaker 4: because there needs to be something in place for those people.
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  Speaker 4: But if you don't, you are not allowed to abuse
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  Speaker 4: our system, any system. That's what I'm seeing is this
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  Speaker 4: certain groups seems to abuse every system that's put in
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  Speaker 4: place for us to help those people that really need
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  Speaker 4: it in this country, including flying.
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  Speaker 1: So this is this goes back to one of the
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  Speaker 1: the challenges when you have a society that's built on
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  Speaker 1: welcoming as many different people as you can is that
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  Speaker 1: if you don't have people assimilate into the country and
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  Speaker 1: they keep some old values, then you start to get
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  Speaker 1: some other problems. And especially when you have people coming
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  Speaker 1: from what's called low trust countries, where the culture in
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  Speaker 1: that country is not about honesty. It is about get
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  Speaker 1: what you can because everybody else is trying to get
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  Speaker 1: what they can and you can't really trust people. If
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  Speaker 1: you have a country that's built on trust, as the
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  Speaker 1: United States was supposed to have been, you don't end
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  Speaker 1: up with these problems because people self regulate. But when
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  Speaker 1: you have people come over from other countries where it
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  Speaker 1: is low trust country to begin with, and then we
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  Speaker 1: just have wide open systems, they get abused by people
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  Speaker 1: who have a different cultural background.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's so frustrating. You know what's interesting is and
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  Speaker 5: this is shifting gives just a little bit because we're
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  Speaker 5: talking about airports. I am amazed, like I tell Kevin
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  Speaker 5: and going to Knoxville, Tennessee to see my grants and
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  Speaker 5: they just moved there. And I'm constantly amazed at the
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  Speaker 5: people that are that are able to do this financially,
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  Speaker 5: because Kevin and I are like, Okay, how much is
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  Speaker 5: it going to cost for us to fly this? And okay,
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  Speaker 5: we got to we're gonna save here so that we
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  Speaker 5: can go here, and we've got to use our miles
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  Speaker 5: and all that. Every single time I travel, I'll see
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  Speaker 5: people there and I'm thinking how they might be in
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  Speaker 5: pajamas and flip flops and they're like, you know, laying
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  Speaker 5: they're sleeping on the you know, all the seats that
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  Speaker 5: are together, and I am I don't know how people
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  Speaker 5: are able to do all of this. There's so many
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  Speaker 5: things that you can observe and discover at the airport
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  Speaker 5: that doesn't make sense. One of them is that, like,
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  Speaker 5: I could never imagine pretending like I needed a wheelchair
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  Speaker 5: just to get in the just to cut the line. Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I don't know. I just even when we go on
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  Speaker 5: trips and we're spending so much money to do these
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  Speaker 5: extracurricular activities that we know, and we'll see a family
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  Speaker 5: and and you know Tennessee, I was like, oh my god,
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  Speaker 5: a lot of them didn't have their teeth or anything. Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I was like, how are they doing this? We're having
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  Speaker 5: to save up for whether it's the airport.
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  Speaker 1: And how they able to pull that off? Fair enough? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it is. It is a question. And I'll tell you
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  Speaker 1: what it is fun people watching at the airport. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever done that, but sometimes it
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  Speaker 1: can also be frustrating people watching at the airport, and
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  Speaker 1: we've lost the America office. If you like tuscar America
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: off it's a question, go to our website America Ready
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  Speaker 1: dot com slash moms a click on the stimon they
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  Speaker 1: about fell out, Tear it down, Brothers and