Passengers with reduced mobility (PRM) are entitled to free assistance, and are permitted to cut queues at the airport.
Support can be requested at the time of booking, or during check-in, but passengers are not required to present proof of disability, prompting unscrupulous able-bodied travellers to exploit the policy.
The practice is becoming so common that airline staff have coined the phrase “miracle flights” to describe how some travellers require a wheelchair to board the aircraft, but depart without it.
“We’d say there was a miracle because they all needed a wheelchair getting on, but not getting off,” Kelly Skyles, an American Airlines flight attendant told the New York Times. “Not only do we serve beverages and ensure safety — now we’re healing the sick.”

WTF. I just sit in my relatively comfy airport lounge chair until the queue has gone through. It's not as if the plane will leave without you.

It's not as if the plane will leave without you.

Yes, yes it is.

Well, obviously it could if you wilfully refuse to get on, but they'd stop the plane taking off until they got your luggage off it. Assuming you've already checked in and been issued with a boarding pass and had your luggage checked in and loaded onto the plane, do you think any airline is going to let a plane take to the air without at least checking if you're around and giving you a call on the PA system? No plane in the world is going to take off with 'unattended' insecure baggage in the hold, it's just too much of a risk.

Actually nowadays if you do not turn up they pull off your luggage. It goes no where.

If they're sat in a wheel chair then they can comfortably queue with everyone else IMO.

If they're sat in a wheel chair then they can comfortably queue with everyone else IMO.

That part is fine, but ignores the scrum that is inevitable on the entry and exit. The only real benefits of using this service are on budget airlines, where it is a scramble to get the best seats. On full fare airlines you can preselect a seat so the scrum is unnecessary.

Did I misunderstand? I thought we were talking about the security queues etc. I fully understand that disabled need to be first on/last off the plane.