pkerr

You just must be lucky. I've never had the priveldge to sit next to a corpulent individual even on a completely full flight.

nineworldseries

Do you fly in America? How often? I find it difficult to believe that you've never sat next to an average American on a plane.

pkerr

Ha Ha! Quite the humorist you are. On the non full flights I get that empty middle seat to stay unoccupied (using a secret strategy) and on the full ones only the emaciated and waif like choose to sit next to me.
Maybe you are just really attractive to those types of people.

mtofell

I'm with nineworld on this one - I can't imagine flying with any regularity in the USA and not having some "spillover" into my space. As much as many try to deny it Americans are overweight and getting more so by the day. Seats were designed for the size of people +/- 50 years ago. In FC it's really not an issue but I'd estimate somewhere around 25% of the time in "main" cabin seats I'm at least somewhat bothered by the size of the person next to me.

Chamor

When I fly WN, and the flight is not completely full, I like to sit in a row with a moose-sized passenger in the window seat. I take the aisle seat. The moose takes the window and a chunk of the middle seat. Typically, nobody wants to try to squeeze in what remains of the middle seat -- the part moose is not occupying. So in that way having moose in my row is an advantage. I have managed to put moose to good use.

seat7a.speedbird2.030828

i can't remember if i posted this story before....

mco->dal returning from a fortune 1000 annual kickoff, before the rona. trying LUV for the first time in 2 decades because of something AA did (not relevant to this thread).

not tiuned up on LUVtalk. fell for the banana in the tailpipe.

row 10, i have the aisle, a co-worker has the window.

1B remains empty, as well as the seat between me and my co-worker. Jackpot!

nope.

everyone is boarded. 10 minutes go by. we're past departure. another 5 minutes.

crashing down the jetway comes a young couple dressed for the People of Southwest trailer park episode

the husband says to the FA "sorry we were at disney world and lost track of time"

in tow with mom and dad are 2 "lap infants" both of which are completely mobile and overloaded on thousands of milligrams of refined sugar

the oldest was at least 4

there are 2 empty seats

the plane was held for this malign fiesta

oh yes, the beast in 1c is 300# with 24" shoulders

guess what happens next?

smmrfld

What exactly is the point of this post, and what's with the “People of Southwest” and other derogatory comments?

Unimatrix One

I have very very rarely ended up next to a COS on my flights, maybe because I live in Asia where obesity is much rarer (and in recent years I almost always buy J, which makes sitting next to a COS a non-issue), but on my last WN flight (which was 18 years ago) this very thing happened. I had an aisle seat and a late boarding COS sat right next to me in the middle seat. It was an unpleasant 2.5 hour flight. All my domestic US flights since then have been on other carriers, generally in F.

nineworldseries

Are there very many WN planes going out in summer 2022 with empty seats? Asking for a friend, of course.

nsx

In my experience, if the fares are sky high few seats will be empty. If the fares are reasonable (currently CA-Hawaii or intra-CA) there will be empty seats.