Seinfeld had one funny joke about left handed people thirty odd years ago, and the rest of his career has been him just being an asshole
Seinfeld is a jerk with his sneering “joke” about people on carts, but there is a grain of truth there. It’s not as though the airlines are asking for proof of disability, and just like service animals, that means widespread abuse of the system is a certainty. I recall there was a prior thread in which @LSLGuy commented that the miraculous healing power of air travel is a well known phenomenon in the industry. On virtually every flight, a significant proportion the wheelchairs waiting at the destination (the same number as those requested for boarding) are not used.
ETA here:
Indians and airport wheelchairs - #9 by LSLGuy
(nothing to do with the “Indians” aspect of the OP)
I won’t disagree with you. It seems a fundamental human law that if someone can take advantage of a given situation, they will. In this case, using a cart or a wheelchair when they otherwise don’t need to.
On the trip I just mentioned, when plane #2 was loading while plane #1 was landing, we barely got to the take-off gate in time. In fact, we were about 100 yards from the gate when our names came over the PA. When we got to the gate, an airline employee put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me down the jetway to the plane door. Frankly, I could’ve used that wheelchair from the get-go, but I was grateful they ended up holding the plane for us. I’d bet they were about a minute away from closing the door and we would’ve missed our flight.
I seem to remember that thread having a number of examples of why people may find it more difficult to get to a gate than leaving from a gate.
Not saying that people don’t take advantage of things, but many times people are assumed to be taking advantage of something by people who don’t know what they fuck they are talking about. (ref. Seinfeld, not you.)
Nowadays the major airlines are really tracking passenger flows through the hubs. Your departing gate agents knew exactly who was coming from which gates and when those airplanes started deboarding long before you left your inbound plane. Depending on the carrier, they may even have an estimate of your ETA to the departing gate based on typical deboarding times for your specific seat row on the arriving plane and the typical walk time between those two specific gates.
Holding outbound flights for connecting kids or the folks with wheelchair or cart service are not unusual at all. Folks other than that are usually assumed to make the normal speed through the terminal. Whether we hold for the (apparently) able-bodied depends on a myriad of factors, including whether there’s seats available on the next flight and how soon it is.
A lot more serious data science goes into this stuff than just a couple years ago.
I have persistent anemia and bad knees. When the anemia kicks in I don’t have the energy for long walks, which is acerbated by my knee problem. When I’m flying from Raleigh to Chicago, which I do several times a year, I can usually get to my gate in DRU by myself by using the moving walkways that run from the security area to my gate at the far end of the terminal. However, getting from my arrival gate at O’Hare to baggage claim, and then to wherever I have to go to get to my final destination (this varies depending on where I’m going in Chicago) I need a wheelchair. So my usual routine is to check in at my departure gate and request that a wheelchair be waiting for me at O’Hare. This automatically triggers two things: I get to pre-board, and I am tagged for wheelchair service for my return flight.
One time on my way home after being brought to my gate at O’Hare there was a delay in the flight, and then a gate change was announced. So I had to go to the service desk and ask for a wheelchair to take me to the new gate, which of course was not near the old gate. I was not alone in this, as there was an elderly woman and (I presume) her daughter who also needed transportation to the new gate. Fortunately, they were able to get us to the new gate before the plane was ready for boarding.
Well, one obvious factor is, getting to the gate has a hard time limit. Too slow? Sorry, missed your flight.
You can take your time getting to the baggage claim or taxi area.
Okay, fair point. I see people being ferried around in those golf cart like vehicles each time I’m there. I assumed those with an actual medical need would take advantage of that option.
Once I reserved for a courtesy shuttle, only to find the shuttle packed and the driver about to leave. Halt! Here I am traveling solo with 2 babies paying full fares for all three of us and with all the handhelds of stroller/ car seat, and bag. He shrugged after realizing a couple lazy broads took advantage of our late arrival.
No way was he leaving, I handed the driver the folded stroller, hoisted the two yo up on a space and pushed my way on a seat behind the driver.
Airports. So fucking triggering.
Now I’m wondering if Seinfeld ever did a routine on how pissed off he was at having to drive past all those unused handicapped spaces in order to park in the supermarket lot. 
Well, as it happens…
The handicapped parking spot is the mirage of the parking desert. Do you know that feeling? You see it, there in the distance. It’s almost… And you can’t believe your eyes. It’s too good to be true. It’s a big, wide spot, it’s right by the entrance. Somehow, everybody missed it. What is the handicapped parking situation at the Special Olympics? They must have to just stack, like, 100 cars into those two spots. How else are they gonna do it?
I’ve got Stage 4 cancer and my endurance is gone. I’ve booked a wheelchair for my connect at DFW this month. I need it.
I recall a comic I saw someplace back in the 1980s. Might’ve been TV, might’ve been live. Anyhow a 30-ish dude with a patter of mostly one-liners including this gem. Or at least it was received as a gem at the time.
[random straight set-up and joke rejoinder]
[random straight set-up and joke rejoinder]
Yeah, I beat up a old guy in a wheelchair last week. … Caught him parkin’ in one of our spaces. That’ll teach 'im!
[random straight set-up and joke rejoinder]
…
Yesterday I went to a terminal in a non-hub airport I’d not been in years. With a very long string of multiple consecutive moving sidewalks. I rode about 6, maybe 8 in a row. I though of this thread and passed the time watching the crowd coming the other way and the one I was embedded in.
Lots of walkers, zero standers, zero elderly / evidently infirm, and nobody with small kids. It was just a race between the speed demons in the left “lane” of each walkway and the saunter walkers in the right “lane”.
I’ll do the same terminal later today / tonight, but late enough there won’t be too many people there.
Eh, you wouldn’t know my wife is waiting for a new hip while she stands on the moving walkway. You’d just think, Damn! How’d susan score such a hot yet slow-moving wife?
Hence the “evidently” part. Lotsa folks aren’t as attuned to that possibility as I am. As was made obvious upthread.
I’m not disputing with you, just having a conversation. Read it as “Yes, you wouldn’t know my wife is waiting…”
Cool. Sorry to have read a tone there you didn’t mean. 
My Wife and I always walk on them. Oddly myself at 6’2 and my my at 5’1 is hard to keep up with. Walkways or not. She’s a very fast walker. I am also, or so I thought.
I prefer to walk behind my wife. As she is somewhat short, I can keep my eye on her. I can see over most people in a crowd, she can’t.
I’ll admit, it’s sort of a guy thing.
Met some of their relatives this past weekend. The ones who stop in front of the walkway/escalator because they’re not sure if that’s the direction they want to go.
I guess that’s the other problem about airports - too many tourists and newcomers who aren’t familiar with the area and are indecisive.