WillCAD

Speaking as a tall, wide, fat guy who can't fit in one seat (and I buy two seats so I won't inconvenience anyone else), my opinion is that you should never have sat down in the first place - you should have found the FA and reported that there is someone sitting in your seat. No matter how hard they tried to tell you to "try", you should have refused to sit down and simply kept repeating, "I can't sit in my seat, there is already someone sitting in it."

One should always take the high road and never refer to fat people as fat in public, never resort to name-calling or body shaming, and never raise a ruckus that will embarrass the customer of size. However, one should also never accept less than what one has paid for, and never sit down in half an airplane seat.

The COS has a responsibility to purchase two seats if he doesn't fit properly in one. If he fails to do so, then the airline has the responsibility of either finding him two available seats, or off-loading him, to prevent him from taking a seat that someone else has paid for.

A COS infringing upon someone else's seat is simply a form of seat poaching, and should be dealt with in the same manner as any other seat poach - quietly give the poacher an opportunity to vacate without sacrificing dignity, but if they refuse, use any legal means available, including (in the most extreme circumstances) having them removed from the aircraft by the police and charged with trespassing and refusal to obey the lawful instructions of a flight attendant.

Badenoch

Tin wings on a dress shirt don't impress me all that much. While he can off-load me in favour of a POS the matter most certainly won't end there.

But this thread does give me the thought that should this situation arise a mobile phone snapshot of the POS might be a good idea.

LondonElite

Well said.

LarryJ

The airlines' policies are clear. It is the COS that should be moved or removed. If the airline employee tries to make you move to another seat ask for the complaint resolution officer (CRO). The CRO will know the proper procedure and will make sure that it is followed. This applies to all US airlines.

jrl767

is there going to be a CRO at a small outstation that only has three daily flights operated by 50- or 76-seat jets in regional affiliate colors? wouldn't "ask the station manager to contact the CRO at the nearest hub" be a more realistic approach?

LarryJ

The Air-Carrier Access Act (ACAA) requires the airline to have a CRO "immediately available, even if by telephone".

Carl Johnson

Delta says "aisle" armrests.

Before we take off, we need to make sure our seat is upright, our aisle armrests are lowered, our tray table is put away, and all carry-on luggage is properly stowed.

The obesity rule that I have read does say that the arm rest has to be able to be lowered, but (on Delta anyway), it's only the aisle armrest that we are instructed to lower for landing.

Loren Pechtel

Good idea.

Rebelyell

For people in an aisle seat, this sounds like a solution. Simply activate the lever to raise the aisle armrest, and sit so that part of your body is in the aisle (not hard when someone is taking up half your seat). When they come around asking you to lower the armrest, you can say, "I cain't" and point to the other armrest.

rhwbullhead

I think you probably can guess why: while it's their job, they don't want to deal with the uncomfortable situation so they just hope the inconvenienced passenger just deals with it so they can avoid the confrontation and get the flight out on time.

I have a friend who is like 350lbs and I researched this issue but he ultimately didn't follow my advice. As was stated in an earlier post WN has the best policy for this. He remembered the bad press WN has gotten in the past so he didn't listen to me despite me quoting him WN's current policy. (Another factor probably is ORD is like a 15-20 min drive for us, while MDW is way farther, even with no traffic. The WN policy, as stated above let's you reserve two seats, and refunds you the money after the flight as long as you request ir.

He flew AA instead as he said he didn't have a problem with them when he was even larger (he has lost some weight.) He didn't report any issues but I wouldn't want to sit by him.

Just before I was about to post, I realized that my budget flights on Spirit and Frontier could also work for him in that the discounted seats are sometimes cheaper at 2x price vs 1x a WN flight.

Loren Pechtel

Yup. You have to make it their problem or nothing will be done.

Henla

I had a POS next to me recently. He nonchalantly said to me, "we won't be able to put the arm rest down," like that should be fine. He sat down and we were in contact from shoulder to knee.

I let the FA know. He first seemed not to take it seriously, like it was my problem to solve. I got up and let him know I wasn't going to simply go away. Seeing that helping would be the path of least resistance, he found two seats for my wife and me, presumably sending one PAX to where my wife was (leaving the middle next to the POS empty).

The solution seemed like win-win to me and probably would have happened earlier had the POS let the GA know of the problem rather than simply making it someone else's problem.

Annalisa12

Why didn't they do that seating arrangement on check in. Annoying.

HMO

Let me guess... the new seats were how many rows behind your original one?

Efrem

One possible answer, though not the only one, is that the POS checked in at online or at a kiosk, and either selected a seat without any other person's involvement or was assigned a seat by a computer that didn't know how wide he/she was.