08-28-2019
02:45 PM
08-28-2019
02:45 PM
A: Good job trying to shame people when you have no idea what their issues are. B: There’s not that many people in this picture, so even if they are all preboarding this is a completely reasonable amount of people. c: I see only 1 person who seems like they might not be disabled, but even then I wouldn’t assume. One lady is literally pushing a wheelchair in this picture and 2 are elderly and hunched over.
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I stand by my constant opinion of: I would rather watch 50 people faking a disability to game the system get away with it than call out 1 real disabled person as having a "fake" disability and make their day that much worse. No, I don't think every person using preboarding is either permanently or temporarily disabled. But I think it's a much higher percentage than most of you passing judgement realize. Personally, I never flew SWA until I became disabled. I literally found SWA BECAUSE they are so great towards people with disabilities. I'd hazard a guess that I'm not unique in that regard.
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Personally, as the owner of an ESA and as someone about to get her first full on service dog, I WISH there was a legal certification program for service dogs/ESAs/whathaveyou. Poorly behaved fake service dogs are huge problem. Not just in the sense that they make the rest of us look bad, but those dogs can also harm/psychologically damage the real service animals. I don't bring my ESA anywhere unless I absolutely have to. I've only ever put a foot down about needing her when it comes to renting an apartment. Never has she come into a retail store (except pet stores) or restaurant with me. Unfortunately, in the 8 years I've had her, I've developed mobility issues so now I need a mobility dog and it's gonna be huge because bracing dogs HAVE to be large. I'll probably need an extra seat for the dog once it's fully trained (it's gonna be at least 2 years but I'm already stressing about it). Situations like this lady make me even more worried about what that's going to be like when I fly with the dog in a few years. At least airlines are finally updating their service animal policies and trying to police them better. But change happens slowly and I'm seriously worried someone's going to end up seriously hurt or killed by one of these fake service animals before they get actual regulations in place.
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12-19-2018
03:01 AM
1 Love
I’m going to get a T-shirt made for my next SW flight that says ”Ask the angry veteran why she’s disabled and experience the ‘joys’ of disability for yourself!” And probably get kicked out of the airport lol Either that or I’m going to get badges made for some of y’all (you know who ya are) that say “Official not questioning REAL disabilities certification”.
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Okay, the young, disabled vet chick will bite: As others have already mentioned, preboarding is for those who need specific seats. For example, I might seem fine but trust me I need my girlfriend with me to help me get up after a long flight. Extra legroom can really be a godsend too. Not just for me but for the person who might have been in front of me who would have been kicked/shoves repeatedly by me trying desperately to stretch out my legs/arms w/e happens to be stiffening up. Last time I flew SW I actually let self important ****heads like you scare me into taking seats further back so as not to ruffle feathers. I was in so much pain... I’ve never wished I could pop pills more in my life. But noooo, I have to react badly to most medications on top of everything else. But who cares? That group A person with a chip on her shoulder (yes of course there was a specific “her”) got to sit in the front row. Spoiler alert, she still didn’t shut the F up about “paying to sit first”. Now, in the specific needs I mentioned, neither of those things requires me to wait for you to get off first. Sometimes I will, because each day is different, but normally the longer I’m sitting the worse it is. I need to constantly rotate between sitting and walking usually and me waiting for y’all to figure your messes out doesn’t do me and my single purse carry on any good. Now on other airlines I typically don’t bother preboarding, but then I’m usually paying for a zone that boards earlier anyway. For me, the absolute most important thing is that I snag a seat with one of my travel companions (ie: my girlfriend) and if I can get the front row so I’m not in pain you can bet I’ll do that too. Cause, unlike those of you who “paid more” and think it makes y’all judge and jury of everyone who boards before you, I can’t sit in an exit row to get that extra leg room.
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Unfortunately it's not just on SWA, people with disabilities are judged 24/7, especially if you "look healthy." As a 32 year old with back and joint pain who needs a cane and unable to take pain meds on a daily basis I get it all the time. People think if I freeze and gasp right in front of them on the stairs that I'm somehow doing it to spite them. The "tsks" and exasperated grunts are almost a daily thing. People muttering "why don't you just use the elevator" as they cut around me on the stairs at subway stations that don't even have an elevator. I get stared at one second, then treated like I'm invisible the next. I've been pointed and laughed at when I nearly fall and run into and shoved around on a weekly basis. If I raise a complaint they're all too quick to grumble about my expecting 'special treatment'. Yeah, because not wanting to be shoved as I exit a subway is 'special treatment.' I'm going to be flying SWA for the first time in December BECAUSE their policy is so kind to those with disabilities. It's a level of kindness I don't get in my day to day life. Seeing people respond like preboarders are a personal attack against them is just more of what I see daily. These are the people who, if left to their own devices, would act like I was invisible if they had a seat on a subway and I was standing with my cane in front of them. People who try so hard to judge people's disabilities as "fake" are just looking for a reason to mentally justify being angry so they don't have to admit that they're being jerks.
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Sooo much this! I was in the Air Force and when I first joined we actually weren't allowed to fly in uniform AT ALL except for when it was specifically on our orders to do so. That only happened once when I was flying from Tech School to my clinicals location in my blues and again when I went TDY to Ft Dix before my deployment. Now about halfway through my time they actually changed the rule to allow us to fly in uniform but I only did it once when I happened to be flying on Memorial Day and my dad (a veteran himself) was picking me up from the airport. I never did so again afterwards though because I got more than a little paranoid about this guy who kept following me around at my layover and creeping me out by staring at me. The problem is, and you can see it in the previous employee's post if you read between the scripted lines, that airlines want to be SEEN being generous to service members. That's why most of them only take uniformed military for early boarding. Once while active duty I even heard that rarest of messages "all active duty military can now board" with no uniform qualifier and when I got to the gate the lady told me I couldn't board if I wasn't in uniform. This wasn't Southwest but it WAS when the Air Force didn't allow us to fly in uniform unless expressly stated on our orders. I had my military ID on me too so it wasn't that they didn't believe me, they simply cared far more that the people could SEE that they were letting a military person board first rather than just some random chick in civies. And as Lindsey so nicely pointed out, their "goal is to preserve the goodwill of all customers". They know that if the other customers see me in my civies board in the military boarding time then they're going to get crap for it. Rather than stand up and say "sir/ma'am, that young lady IS in the military" they'd rather shame me and turn me away at the gate while everyone else waiting just assumes I'm some civilian trying to game the system. Translation, they'd rather the service member look/feel like garbage than them.
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I'm not sure if someone else has brought this up, if they have then let me second it, if they haven't then let me offer an alternate POV: I'm a disabled veteran with a cane and I'm flying Southwest for the first time in my whole life BECAUSE of their preboarding policy, and I'm willing to bet a lot of others are too. Now my cane is folding, and honestly I might fold up my cane and put it in my purse beffore I board because I don't want to inconvience people once on board. That said I still need to hold onto seats (something that's hard to do when dozens of others are getting seated) or keep a hand on the wall as I walk onto the plane, I might even need to stop because my knee locked up as it so often does and I don't want someone to run into me because I came to a sudden stop if/when that happens. Now chances are I'm probably won't fold up my cane because threads like this are a constant reminder that society expects my 32 year old self to LOOK disabled. Society glares at me when I pass them on the sidewalk with my cane on my good days and society watches me on the days when I'm barely hobbling along and wonders if I'm faking on my bad ones. When I mention that I'm former military everyone just goes "OHHHH You got injured" Well... No actually I just have a bad hip (and because of that a bad leg) and the military isn't exactly kind to any weakness in our bodies. The military (no matter what happened to you) basically fast forwards your body's wearing down far faster than your average civilian job, and mine was probably originally meant to start having issues at 40-something. I LOVE that Southwest isn't forcing me to pay even more than I already do for being disabled. I've already paid years of my life, my health, my marriage, and who I was as a person just to end up a disabled wreck who couldn't even function in society for the first teo years that I was out. Do some people abuse the system? Of course they do, someone ALWAYS abuses every system out there. But Southwest has chosen not to punish the rest of us as a result and I applaud them for that. You are not Southwest, and you are not judge jury and executioner of anyone who may or may not have a disability. Maybe you luck out and the person you call out as a fake is actually a fake and is embarassed enough to never try to scam the system again. But in my experience that never happens. If you actually do catch a scammer they'll likely just continue to keep up the act and you'll end up tossed out of the airport by secuity for harrassing the 'disabled' person cause scammers will use the system to their advantage here. If you catch someone with a legitimate disability then you're making their already difficult life that much worse. In my case I'd probably have a panic attack and shut down if you actually confronted me in public cause I also have severe anxiety and moderate PTSD. You basically need to ask yourself it that risk is worth it for you. Are you okay with adding additional suffering to someone who might already suffer more than you can possibly imagine on a daily basis? The thing to remember is that the preboarding is as much for your benefit as it is for those who are disabled. It keeps us out of your way with our gimpy selves while you all rush for your prefered seats. In fact most disabled people I know who fly Southwest actually don't even go for the better seats, they just go for anywhere that allows them to sit with their companion who may need to assist them. And if we do board alongside you we possibly can do things like lifting up luggage or walk without aid and we'll get them done to keep from holding you up, but often we're internally screaming in pain during or after doing those things. It's said over and over again but you can't possibly know everything a person is dealing with in their life. I'd rather let a few scammers slide than chance hurting those who are already hurting and don't deserve it.
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