What do you do when the passenger is quite overweight?
Mar 20, 2019, 8:11 pm
#107
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"Life is not fair and it will never be", that's the victim's attitude and letting the airline's getting away with injustices and excessive profit. Who will pay for the extra seats? The airlines will, it will cut from their profits, to provide better customer care and comfort and to provide fair access to essential transportation. Most cabins don't go out full anyway...Minimally we need better protections of consumers/ flyers rights, COS and seatmates alike.
Mar 20, 2019, 8:14 pm
#108
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"Life is not fair and it will never be", that's the victim's attitude and letting the airline's getting away with injustices and excessive profit. Who will pay for the extra seats? The airlines will, it will cut from their profits, to provide better customer care and comfort and to provide fair access to essential transportation. Most cabins don't go out full anyway...Minimally we need better protections of consumers/ flyers rights, COS and seatmates alike.
No, the cost will come from passengers if they can get get it.
We don't require clothing manufactures to charge more for bigger sizes. A bigger person uses more soap, should they get a bigger bar for the same price?
Mar 20, 2019, 8:21 pm
#109
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I have little interest in timidly cooperating with an FA who attempts to relocate me to a lesser location from a seat I pre-selected and paid extra for simply to accommodate a POS. If I didn't pre-select then I will grudgingly accept a move to seat where I'm not being encroached upon. If there are no available seats any suggestion that I leave the aircraft instead of the POS will be met with polite but resolute non-compliance until they opt for a different course of action.
Mar 20, 2019, 9:32 pm
#110
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There is also the safety issue. I pay for my seat and the space around it. I have sympathy for people of size, but also expect my space to be respected....let the thing begin.
Mar 20, 2019, 10:10 pm
#111
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I have had this happen twice, both on United. I calmly got up , grabbed my roll aboard and swam upstream against the loading passengers
when asked at the door what was going on I said, “ I have time to take a different route as my seat is being filled by my neighbour”
2 outcomes, the first, I got a refund and put on the next flight , 3 hours later
the second they found an economy row for me with an empty middle and a passenger by the window
i have no idea what became of the POS situation but I removed myself from that equation
i get that this worked as I’m a flexible traveller
when asked at the door what was going on I said, “ I have time to take a different route as my seat is being filled by my neighbour”
2 outcomes, the first, I got a refund and put on the next flight , 3 hours later
the second they found an economy row for me with an empty middle and a passenger by the window
i have no idea what became of the POS situation but I removed myself from that equation
i get that this worked as I’m a flexible traveller
Thank you, OP, for initiating this thread. Crocodile tears for the "politically correct" posters out there, expressing outrage and indignation.
Mar 20, 2019, 11:12 pm
#112
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Mar 21, 2019, 12:12 am
#113
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A bit OT, but "political correctness" is about understanding and respecting diversity, which is relevant to the topic here, and it should not be used as pejorative (or at all).
Mar 21, 2019, 4:32 am
#114
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this actually really bothers me. I wear smaller clothing but I pay the same price as a larger person who uses 2x the fabric
Mar 21, 2019, 4:45 am
#116
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WRONG - the cost will be passed along via increased fares. Have you ever taken an economics or finance course? There is no line item for companies to eat sh*t based on obese customers
Mar 21, 2019, 5:14 am
#117
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You are literally paying much more for a subset of the flights because you are departing from a place where rich people live.
Which is not to say that I think airlines should design seats with more space for the morbidly obese. If you need more space (or even if you just want more space) you should pay for it. If you're too fat to fit in an economy seat then pay for more space or don't fly.
Mar 21, 2019, 5:19 am
#118
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Maybe. Maybe not. Airfare seems to be based mostly on what the market will bear, rather than actual costs. That's why you can often get (for example) a CMB-HKG-SFO business class ticket on CX for way less than HKG-SFO. Or why you can fly, first class, on UA, YVR-SFO-OGG rt for much less than SFO-OGG rt.
You are literally paying much more for a subset of the flights because you are departing from a place where rich people live.
Which is not to say that I think airlines should design seats with more space for the morbidly obese. If you need more space (or even if you just want more space) you should pay for it. If you're too fat to fit in an economy seat then pay for more space or don't fly.
You are literally paying much more for a subset of the flights because you are departing from a place where rich people live.
Which is not to say that I think airlines should design seats with more space for the morbidly obese. If you need more space (or even if you just want more space) you should pay for it. If you're too fat to fit in an economy seat then pay for more space or don't fly.
Mar 21, 2019, 5:26 am
#119
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It's threads like this that ended up with me being hospitalized twice in my early 20's for eating disorders, followed by many years of therapy. I'm not posting that to look for sympathy -- I am far past that.
And the seat belt extender is not a measure of anything. I can sit in 10C and not need one, and switch to 10D and need one. If the ends fray, they chop it off and make it slightly smaller rather than replace the whole belt. Delta confirmed this to me, so maybe I am making a bad assumption that AA does the same to save costs.
And the seat belt extender is not a measure of anything. I can sit in 10C and not need one, and switch to 10D and need one. If the ends fray, they chop it off and make it slightly smaller rather than replace the whole belt. Delta confirmed this to me, so maybe I am making a bad assumption that AA does the same to save costs.
Mar 21, 2019, 5:59 am
#120
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This situation, while unfortunate, is all to common these days. It should be pretty obvious when a POS is in the gate area and won't fit into a single seat. There are some grey areas, where people will, but there are also very obvious situations where they won't. If there is a policy in place about this, who enforces it? What if the flight is full and a neighboring seat is not available? Wasn't there a big deal a few years back at Southwest where they had people go into the back of the ticket counter to sit in a seat to make sure they fit? Unfortunately, there have been a number of lawsuits against airlines by people forced to sit next to a POS, with the most recent one claiming back and neck problems. In the age of the shrinking airline seat and increasing passenger size, this has become a more common issue.
Slightly off topic, I was at Universal Orlando a couple weeks ago. Got onto an attraction and someone in the row in front of me was big. Not overly obese, but pretty tall and a bit on the heavy side. Couldn't get the shoulder bar to lock into place. A number of workers were trying to get it to go down, but were unsuccessful. I felt bad for this kid since he waited for over an hour for the ride, but had to get off because the safety harness wouldn't lock into place.
Slightly off topic, I was at Universal Orlando a couple weeks ago. Got onto an attraction and someone in the row in front of me was big. Not overly obese, but pretty tall and a bit on the heavy side. Couldn't get the shoulder bar to lock into place. A number of workers were trying to get it to go down, but were unsuccessful. I felt bad for this kid since he waited for over an hour for the ride, but had to get off because the safety harness wouldn't lock into place.