Can I help you

acucobol

Badenoch

The man who is suing made a few errors. The first was to raise his concerns after take-off. If the person beside you is spilling in to your seat seek redress before departure. His second mistake was not taking a picture of the large passenger which would go a long way to helping his case in the public forum. Finally, he waited too long before commencing his legal action.

Having read more than a few stories like this my plan of action should a Passenger Of Size (POS) be seated beside me is to raise the matter with the cabin crew BEFORE take-off, take a picture/video of the POS and calmly but steadfastly refuse to return to my assigned seat. Acceptable solutions are either I or the POS get a new seat or he/she is ordered off the plane and I get to enjoy all of the space I paid for.

Finavia

kobolcs

I am a passenger of size with special needs with my 30 stones, so haters go comment , but
iI want share my perspective of challenges as an obese person.
My choices are:
- buy 2 economy tickets, be prepared for the armrest in my back, ignore airlines with non-movable armrest.
(would be nice to get back money (if there is free seat on the flight e.g. AF has the Saphir program) or/and miles for that extra seat
- special case Intra Europe C class with blocked middle seat? Oh hurray, but then then the stupid serving table mounted in the middle seat is unmountable, I cant' raise the armrest. Hell of the accessibility design.
- buy a business ticket for longha but there is a problem nowadays 18-20" is normal also for a business class, if I pay 2000+ euro I want to feel comforable. For me it is from 24" so my choice is limited for airlines {SU,AF,SQ and in others(MF,KQ ...), in some cases , but still have to pray to gods to do not allow equipment change to some crap 17" old business class {OS did that on my PEK-VIE leg 5 years ago, never stepped on OS deck since, which is quite hard as VIE is my home airport, 1 C converted to back row of economy, C was empty but I just cant use the seat because of its design and 17" width}
- if only 20" C class is available and I must fly that route ? I split up into 3-6 hour chunks, but I will be in bad mood.
What should be considered : there are emergency seats for long legged, how about 4-6 seats for horizontally challenged for 1.5x price in economy, most of us dont take more then 1 and a 1/2 seat.
But what to do I love be aairborned, cruises are time-consuming, trains too, but somewhat OK in Europe/China/Japan. That''s why in last 4 month made to gold in 2 FF programs for mostly C class flying.
BA as per my knowledge have only one version of A321 with wider then 20" in C, in Y they are in 17"-18" thats why BA is on my avoid to flight list.

adrianlondon

That's an interesting point about not going up to Premium Economy but instead having some wider seats in Economy. Now, most of the time they'll be empty so it's a waste but perhaps a way of making a bank of three "normal" (i.e. tiny) seats into two "large" seats could be designed. You'd need to have (three) arm-rests that didn't impact someone sitting on it when it's up, and movable seatbelts somehow. But I'm sure it could be designed.

LTN Phobia

Wasn't it a Dash 8 by any chance?

I had that experience myself on the same route. I did got some bruising from the arm rest on the opposite side (which couldn't be moved) because I decided to say nothing so as not to upset/embarrass the fellow passenger and it was a short flight.

I actually did have a little bit of a concern, because I actually was in the aisle seat originally but swapped because she had difficulties getting into the seat and getting into the aisle seat would have been nearly impossible for her. Half way through the flight I suddenly realised that I would have difficulties evacuating if we had an accident, as she would have struggled to get out of her seat. But then it all went safely. And besides, I could probably have climbed over the seat back, as I was younger and fitter then.

Often1

Your use of the word "hater" really is not approrpriate to this thread. It is true that many POS threads devolve into absurd discussions of how people get to be overweight. This one, mercifully, has not. Nor should it.

The focus is on safety and what passengers ought to do.

kobolcs

How about a TwinOtter, ATR72 - personal experience from the other side, hell I even squezed into copilot seat of FOX 912 3A {but without the stick)

zymm

It's not only a lower body issue, the average shoulder width for males (measuring all the way across, as opposed to from joint to joint) is over 17 inches, and is about 17 inches for women. In a 17 inch wide seat, plenty of people spill over at the shoulders, and if it's someone with an athletic build in the middle seat, they can fit their hips in the seat no problem, but every time they move it's a bit of a game to avoid their elbows.

T8191

No, dear Lady. That’s why I typed ATR!

BUT, in fairness, the issue seems worse with the little Budgies, where everything is psychologically cramped. My last ATR, LCY-JER, was fine as I had the row to myself, aomehow!

LTN Phobia

Ah, so I assume you were on Virgin? I didn't realise they operated turboprops on that route! I thought you might have been on a QF Dash 8 which you commonly see and I had essentially the same issue on the same route.

It does seem worse on turboprops, even though I don't know if there is any arithmetic basis to it.

T8191

It was 1988, with Ansett. You were still at school, and knew nothing of these things.

But my memory lingers on ... occasionally. And ba97.com helps, of course!

LTN Phobia

Ahhhh... that long back!
That would have been the days when I could confuse a 747 with a 146 just because they had four engines.

I am not really sure if turboprop seats are narrower than jets but having spent a fair bit of time on turboprops this year, they "feel" far more cramped and I can see it wouldn't be easy for people who are of larger size, or those seated next to them. They also 'seem' less padded, although they may simply be down to perception rather than the truth.

dougzz

Exactly. When I first went on a 787 I was in WT+ but checked out the WT cabin, and I couldn't see how anyone other than the very petite could be happy in that seat.