Originally Posted by
teddybear99
I came to this thread based on the MyFlyertalk email highlighting threads or I would never have seen this.
I have never flown Southwest, so my comments are just what if's.
I have seen some comments mention delaying able body people from exiting a row of seats because someone who is disabled or needing to preboard would "block" them from doing so. How did they get in the seat in the first place? I would think they climbed over the person in the aisle who had preboarded and could not move/stand up to let them in.
So the argument continues about "blocking" people from deplaning due to a person sitting in an aisle who cannot move.
I personally never said that the disabled person in the aisle cannot move, although I think if the passengers is a para- or quadriplegic they are most likely in the bulkhead row where it is easier to get out from the middle and window seats.
But once again, someone with no personal knowledge of traveling with a disable passenger is making assumptions.
The people in the middle/window seats got into them most likely by the disabled passenger standing up and getting out of the way. Not necessarily the easiest thing for the disabled passenger but that's what they have to deal with if they need to preboard. When they do get up to let someone in, it's a little different than at the end of the flight when everyone is in the aisle and there's some jostling going on.
And not everyone wants to climb over or be climbed over. If everyone's ok with it, then sure, go for it. But not everyone is so there will be occasions where the passengers in the middle/window are delayed from deplaning. For whatever reason they might have been some of the last on the plane or they knew they had a tight connection and those were the only seats near the front of the plane. They are entitled to deplane as quickly as any other passenger and it's not really fair to them to hold them up.
The person I travel with will, if it doesn't inconvenience other people, wait till there's a break in the action to get off. We try to be as considerate as our situation allows. My biggest beef with these arguments is not that there are other ways of doing it, it's the attitude from some posters that disabled passengers should be treated like second-class citizens and are just an inconvenience to everyone else so they should stay home.