You are so right. If someone is in seemingly good health and young, there’s no way they could have a disability. You only have a real disability if you are elderly or in a wheelchair. Or if you have cancer or something else that the general public can see and tell that you are disabled. My son has a congenital heart defect and a lowered immune system. We deal with this everytime we fly and I’ve already posted on another thread about how ridiculous this is to me that so many people can’t grasp the concept of a hidden disability (not only CHD but there are so many others). Like I said in my other post, I’m sure there are people who take advantage of pre board, but is it really worth all the trouble to save an extra 5 min? We wear masks and I pre board to adequately wipe down the area we will be sitting in, then my wife waits until everyone else boards the plane, then brings on my son. This keeps him safe from 100s of people passing by him while boarding, and usually there are a few that are coughing or could be sick. I usually choose a reasonable seat 5 or 6 rows back as well, we never sit in the front, but we aren’t going to punish ourselves by going to the very back of the plane as one commenter suggested in another thread. Believe me when I say this, if we could trade spots with the people who don’t need pre board and wait longer, we would. And understand that in the same way people are venting about their frustration for people abusing pre board, I am also venting about my side of the story. People with CHD are constantly not taken seriously in everyday life because in many cases, you can’t tell from looking at them that they are any different from a normal child or adult. Just to put things in perspective - “In the United States, twice as many children die from congenital heart defects each year than from all forms of childhood cancer combined, yet funding for pediatric cancer research is five times higher than funding for CHD.” I know that that pediatric cancer is a terrible thing and it is not my intention to belittle childhood cancer, but children with cancer are more visually disturbing to see than a child with CHD and therefore more attention and funding for research goes to cancer. This is not very different from how things are out in public. I’m sure that is someone saw a child with cancer preboarding there would be no questions asked as to why they are able to pre board, but my son, who has what is considered a terminal illness, looks no different from any other kid.
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