I had to think about why POS would be offensive. I'm an accountant with IT background - for me, POS means Point of Sale, as in a cash register. (giggle)

This is a strategy that I've begun to employ as well, but not specifically wrt overweight pax. I'm fairly large at 6'1" and 215. But my shoulders are more likely to overhang seats than any other part. If I see a large-statured person on the window or aisle with an empty middle, I'll scoop up the other seat in a heartbeat and settle in with hopes that two imposing soles will redirect late pax to some other middle seat.

Unfortunately, that only works on Southwest. :)

Although wouldn't it be nice if we got demographic information about our fellow passengers on the seating chart ahead of time. :)

All people have size.

Guess it's even more uncouth though to refer to me as a person of more size. POMS. If eat some more cookies I'll be a person of much more size. POMMS. A few more and I'll be way more size. POWMS. A few more and Unthinkable Size. POUTS. Boo hoo.

My fiancee is tiny. She's POTS.


...

As stated in a previous post, I'm a Person of (tiny) Size.

But wouldn't it be a great strategy to claim I am a POS (since, yes, I occupy a non-zero volume) and buy 3 seats on a not-very-busy Southwest flight?

Then I could lie down across all 3 seats during the flight and get a refund for the other 2 upon my landing!

Pos
 

I'm a Peaches Of Size.......and all the replies have been so encouraging. Thank you, as they say, for your positive attitudes. Perhaps I shall bring my cookies with me.......
My husband and son will squish over I'm sure, so perhaps all will be well.

My husband is an encroacher and I won't sit beside him unless we are in first class. (He won't encroach on a stranger but for some reason he feels he can take up a portion of my seat.) While he is heavy, it is actually his shoulders that encroach. He always books an aisle seat and hopes for an upgrade (and always gets one on Delta). When we flew down to San Juan on USAir in January, we booked three seats. He did this via phone and explained he was traveling with me and we'd like an entire row (3 across). On all four legs (two up, two down) he was seated with the spare and I was across from him in the next aisle. <looking for head banging avatar> If he's going to get the perk of an empty seat next to him, you can be sure I want the same advantage!

The extender can happen to anyone. As explained earlier they are cut short once frayed. When it finally happens to me, that is the day the diet starts. :P

My parents were on a turboprop flight a few years back where the crew tried to kick off a normal sized pax, who had boarded first, because there was no room for her after the POS who was sitting next to her sat down. Eventually they let her fly in an FA jumpseat.

The alternative that the crew was pushing was for her to be stuck at the airport for either several hours or overnight (I don't remember which, but this was in a small airport that didn't have much service).

I think it's fair to require people who don't reasonably fit into a seat to pay for an additional seat or for an upgraded class. And by "reasonably fit," I mean both width AND length. I want to be able to both put the armrest down AND recline my seat. I paid for the space side-to-side and front-to-back.

Pretty sure I'll be flamed for saying so, but IMHO it is a bit discriminatory for airlines to have a passenger width policy but not a length policy. Regardless of the underlying causes, in my book, if you don't fit, you don't fit.

The interesting part of the above link was:
"Q: Does this policy violate the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Air Carrier Access Act?
A: The DOT has confirmed that airlines are not required by law to provide additional seating or an upgrade in the event additional space is required for a passenger."


Amazing! The government did something right for a change.

Well, the DOT is not the court system. If a passenger sued under the ADA, the airline could still be found liable for making accommodations if the court disagreed.

I'm actually not certain that it would pass muster with a court. An additional seat or upgrade does not seem to be an overwhelming burden on the airline, so it might be construed as a reasonable accommodation.

Amerian Airlines revenues for 2006 were just over $20 B. If the average plane has 100 seats and they have to give away one seat per plane on average, that's $200 Million - for just one airline. About half of their profits, IIRC.

Not to mention all the additional cost of flying the excess weight around. Lots of these 'COS' people are twice my size - so the fuel cost is twice the cost of flying me - and I'm not tiny by any means.

Why should the rest of us be forced to pay the difference? Is GM required to give the customer a Buick LuCerne if they pay for whatever the smallest Chevy is but they don't fit? If the person goes to Ruth's Chris and the steak doesn't fill them up, do they get another one for free? If the clothes at Sears don't fit, is Sears obligated to give you larger clothes for no charge?

Commercial air carriers are exempt from the ADA. Moreover, from what I understand, obesity, in and of itself, is not classified as a disability under the ADA (though obesity may be a symptom of another condition which could be classified as a disability).

In any event, the ACA and not the ADA controls.

Airlines aren't required to make reasonable accommodations for obese people. This has been litigated a number times. The last one that I recall was a discrimination suit brought against Southwest. It failed, as did all the others.

I'm going OT, and quoting you out of context Punki, but... that is one of the best sentences I've ever read on FT!

Buy one seat up front, it shouldn't cost any more than three in back (if you plan correctly), and you'll get bonus FF miles and EQM's.

That's an extreme conclusion. Why on earth would you think it would be anywhere close to 1 out of every 100 seats the airline flies, and you're also assuming that every seat on every plane is sold. Also, not close to true. I do not believe that it would be an undue burden under the terms of the ADA to make such an accommodation.

Having said that, I think the ADA is overbroad and that obesity probably should not be considered a disability under the act (someone noted that it may not be, and that would be a good thing).

I'm just saying that if the ADA were to apply and if obesity were to be considered a disability under the act, then the DOT would not be the decision-maker here.