[MartynSinclair]

“So how do you define who is fat and where do you put the criteria to charge someone or not? It’s a dangerous road I think!”

LP – its simple. If someone can not fit into a seat and thus causes discomfort to the passenger int he next seat, they are simply too fat to fly in one seat.

Sounds harsh, but the reality is they are F A T (a word definded in the dictionary) and as they have to buy larger clothes, they need to buy larger seats.

I agree that the blame must be with the airlines as they believe in a one size economy seat, fits all.

Dangerous road??? No its a road of reality.

[RichHI1]

So if a pregnant woman who is not in the final term and able to fly requires an extra seat belt for safety for her and the baby, are you going to weigh her and insist she buys an extra seat? This whole approach is lunacy. Airlines have cut back and back on what they offer in order to preserve profits and any sane person realises that in many cases they have gone too far. So those who know best want to charge more for people of larger gurth, what about tall people? Are you proposing to make this illegal? The airlines will sell a second seat but tall people only have the option of first Class on long haul ( though some airlines provide good leg room in Business – not BA) on short haul ( up to 4 or 6 hours ) there is virtuall nothing. I have long proposed that airlines should be legally required to provide 2 rows with adequate leg room for tall passengers which can only be reserved by passengers 6’3″ and over, but the vertically challenged argue they will end up paying for it and it is unfair.
What I find morally reprehensible about much of this thread is the idea that you must be able to blame people who are different to you. There are sports players who have large frames should a rugby player or a swimmer be penalized for playing sport? What a good role model that is. I suppose you can blame a woman for making the choice to be pregnant, but don’t expect my support! Are you going to blame people for being Dutch or Kenyan or any other tall race? Are you going to blame parents for nourishing their children so they grow tall or obese for that matter? How about people who put on weight when they gave up smoking, that would be a popular message, stick with smoking it is better than being large.
I spend 2 weeks back in US and we have maximum sizes for passengers being proposed and in another thread LHR being told to specify to airlines what equipment LHR says they can fly… What is going on…. Olympic fever, after all getting people to lut up with the inconvenience that will come will make many state orders seem sensible.

[canucklad]

There seems to be a generalization happening here….Tall people-pregnant people-rugby players-hockey players-mothers with infants- ……. I would be more than happy to sit next to all these people, and over the years have… In fact my friend is an ex-hooker who could be described as being large and athletic! Quite happily sit next to him on long haul jaunts to the HK 7’s —– He easily fitted into his economy KLM seat space and didn’t invade my space….My argument is with people (lifestyle choice) who can afford to pay extra every time the server say’s “Supersize meal?” and they respond “Naturally” ..The people who’s resteraunt of choice normally has a $9.99 all you can eat banner above it’s front door!…. These people should pay for an extra seat …..

On RichH11’s point of 2 aisles this does seem to be a good idea to accomadate people taller than 6.2 ” …however would KLM and Kenya Airways have to increase their fares to compensate for the lost seats ?

[MartynSinclair]

Rich, I appreciate you are tall, but if the space the airline provides in economy does not allow you to fit squueze in to the seat safely, you have choices:

*fly another airline

*accept the seat/space

*ask for more room

*buy more space

*INSIST on more room

Its a bit like a large person (tall or wide) complaining to a car mfg that their car design is too small to enable them to use.

I dont understand this PC issue about large people having a right to squeeze into an economy seat and make life hell for the person in the next seat.

if you dont fit in, buy a bigger seat, simples.

[RichHI1]

Martyn as you will remember from my posts I am forced to travel premium cabins for this reason. My bitch there is domestic US and intra Europe Premium cabins means less and less. My beef is with airlines being legally forced to accomodate animals or handicapped people with a minimum level fo comfort but no such provision exists for able
Bodied humans.
I also take issue that all large people are so because of a lifestyle
Choice. I accept the airline economic argument to charge for extra seats but not any spurious moral argument they try to posit.
I would prefer not to sit next to people who over flow their seats, have BO, are flatulent, talk incessantly , have badly behaved children or keep throwing up in the turbulence. Whether I can blame all these people for lifestyle choices I am not sure, but my view is my choice and I do not try to blame others for it.
Sorry but of he many, Martyn I would have thought you would see the danger in such normalization of humans. Hasn’t worked in the past and God willing it won’t in the future.

[MartynSinclair]

Rich, I am viewing this purely on commerical grounds not the moral high ground or PC’ness.

One buys space on a “bus”, if you dont like the space do as FDOS did and get off.

I had what could have been a difficult situation, thankfully turned out to be quite humourous BY ALL.

3 pax on a city to city, 2.5 hour flight, USA. Nobody checked the weight of the pax and they never advised they were “heavies”. Need to change aircraft and price went up 50% for the larger aircraft, everything was accepted.

We live in a world of eggshells!

[lloydah]

Martyn you are correct. What some posters have forgotten when talking about life styles and choices is the fact that the person who is being squashed and made to feel uncomfortable also has rights.

Rich your list above mentions life styles and I think people have to take responsibility for their own. It’s been said several times that medical/genetic conditions do not come into the argument so we can dismiss these. BO, too talkative?? These are hardly life choices, more simply thoughtless or lazy habits. Whilst I’ll stand up for genuine rights for anyone the feeling that we have to accommodate every nuance of human behaviour is wrong.

[IanFromHKG]

I recall a friend of mine who, on the rare occasions he travelled economy and in all cases where he travelled in regional business (Asian equivalent of Club Europe), INSISTED on being on an exit row despite the fact that he was – not to put too fine a point on it – really rather short. And slim, come to that. I never understood why…

Be that as it may – as I see it the issues are that some people suffer some medical conditions or overall build that make a standard economy seat unsuitable, be they too tall, too wide, incapable of bending their legs*, or whatever. If there are seats in the relevant class which are different in some way and are therefore more suitable for such persons, then it seems reasonable to me that an airline should make provision for them to be placed in those seats without extra charge, just as they make provision for disabled people to sit in seats with movable armrests and aisle access. I also support the idea that airlines – like bus companies and London taxis – should have to spend a bit of extra cash making provision for those suffering from medical conditions, within certain parameters. However, having made those provisions, I see no reason why airlines should be forced to lose revenue by giving extra seats to people who are too large to fit in one (although I acknowledge that to some extent airlines are at fault for fitting seats which are increasingly too small to accommodate the bulk of the bell curve), nor do I see why they should inconvenience other passengers. If people can be accommodated by buying an extra seat, then I think that is fine – and if they get a discount to reflect the fact that they are not getting double service/lounge access/whatever, also fine. Where I do start objecting is if someone starts occupying the space that I have “leased” for the duration of the flight, whether that be by spilling over the armrests, polluting my air, or digging their knees in my back. All of these are no-nos, regardless of the reason, and if the person concerned can’t keep themselves (and their odours) within the space that they themselves have leased, then they should be forced to lease somewhere else that is more suitable. If that means someone can’t get on a flight (because no reasonable accomodation can be made or because they can’t afford it), that’s a shame, but it is also their hard luck (or foolish life choice, as the case may be).

* Lest I sound unsympathetic, I would add that I have myself been on the other side of this equation. I had had surgery on my foot, going in from underneath, and was not permitted to put any weight on the sole of my foot – not even resting it on the ground. This meant I had to prop my leg on something – and this all happened just before I had to fly to the US. This was before lie-flat beds in business, and as it turned out there was simply no way for me to do this without sticking my leg into the aisle (twisting my hips in the process – an excruciating position to be in for any length of time). Even after a 4-hour delay, a plane change because the original went tech, and an hour or two spent by the crew trying to find some way of propping me up that worked for me, I ended up in this extremely uncomfortable position for almost 24 hours (early boarding, delay, replaning, 18-hour flight). I had hoped that they might upgrade me to first – but no such luck, it takes more than a pain-crazed cripple on happy pills with their leg stuck permanently in the aisle to get that sort of good fortune! But I hadn’t paid the first class fare, and I “chose” to travel – my hard luck…

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