American Airlines Apologizes After Ejecting Passenger for Being Too Fat to Fly
Jeff Edwards November 25, 2015
A California man says that he was kicked off his American Airlines flight because a fellow passenger complained that he was too large to sit beside.
Chris Shelly says he was caught off guard when an American Airlines agent at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) ordered him off his flight home to John Wayne Airport (SNA). When Shelly learned that he was being removed from the plane because the passenger next to him complained that he was too large for his seat, his confusion turned to outrage.
“The worst part was being treated as if I was some sort of criminal. Not only a criminal, but a fat criminal,” Shelley told CBS News.
According to Shelly, his ordeal began when a “petite, elderly woman” took a seat next to him on the flight. Kelly says the woman seemed unhappy and simply walked to the front of the plane. Shortly after the woman left, a man in an American Airlines uniform simply ordered Shelly to gather his things and get off the plane. Kelly was told later that he was too large for his seat and “anyone over two inches in the seat cannot sit on the aircraft.”
Shelly, who says that he flies more than 100,000 miles each year on business, never expected to be tossed off a flight because of his size, but he told reporters that he primarily objected to the fact that the airline did nothing to try to resolve the situation. Shelly says it was only after he begged officials to ask the passenger who complained if she would be willing to change seats, that he was allowed to re-board the flight.
“If this is customer service, American Airlines shouldn’t be in business,” Kelly lamented in the interview.
An American Airlines representative confirmed to CBS News that the airline has offered Shelly at least two apologies. The spokesman added that the company is investigating the incident and will review how employees handled the delicate situation.
[Photo: Getty]
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Fatties, stop making excuses. If you can't fit into the seat and space allotted, then buy 2. Musicians do it for their instrument, and I've average sized people do it simply to avoid scraping shoulders with a stranger regardless of size. Flying is costly--deal with it.
Regulations mandate all kind of hypothetical safety gadgets most of which is realistically worthless. Swim wests, rafts, one FA per 50 seats etc etc. But the blatantly obvious need that a seat needs to able to accommodate a passenger is wilfully ignored. The regulation could be simple such as an 18" width and 32" pitch minimum or adaptive: seats needs to fit 98% of the population or based on product integrity: airlines must not allow a passenger to board/sell a ticket to a passenger who doesn't fit into a seat. With the current scheme, the airlines sell the POS a subpar product at the expense of the tiny or slim passengers who do not get the seat they paid for, and the carriers willingly accept that.
If someone is too large for the single seat, then he/she should purchase 2Y seats. They should also get 2X the carry on limit, or a credit if only using a 1 person limit. If they cannot afford it, too bad, stay off the airplane, don't fly. I've had slobs overflow into my area and I hated it. Being large doesn't mean one is a slob or will overflow. Many big people have some muscle tone and can keep their bodies in their own seat.
The real problem is that airline seat dimensions are based on a completely flawed study that measured the hips of male college students. Our shoulders are wider than our hips, college students, have smaller hips then the general population etc. With the variation in seat widths how the heck is anyone even supposed to know if they fit until they get on the plane? Unless the airlines come up with a standardized minimum seat size there just isn't any real way to fix this. It not going to surprise me at all to some disabilities action here either, it certainly worked in Canada.
Personally, I would consider myself to be large, however, I do think that people should be able to fit into one seat. If not, the airlines should have common sense policies to accommodate. Perhaps a sort of soft block for people that are too large to fit into one seat. If the plane isn't full, they can have empty adjacent seat, if not, they can pay for upgrade, for extra seat or be accommodated on an alternative flight with 2 empty seats. But as someone who flies primarily on intra-European flights, I must admit that I almost never witness this issue.