Are there any actual laws/airlines regulations about armrest use?

Factual Questions
1

Not, who gets to have their arms on top of them, but whether passengers have a right to insist they be raised/remain in place?

Recently I took a shortish flight. I was seated in a window seat, and the man in the middle seat beside me was extremely large. I mean, in all ways: tall, broad-shouldered, and overweight. Picture a professional football player who has retired and put on at least an extra hundred pounds.

Almost the moment he arrived he raised the arm rest between us and his mass sort of flowed over into my seat. Even when I shifted to pressing myself against the wall of the plane, his thigh & torso was pushing firmly against me.

I found this very unpleasant. Both physically (I was having to sit with my back crooked) and psychologically. I’m not a touchy-feely type person, and having a total stranger press his body against mine that way felt intrusive.

I asked him to put the arm rest back down (I couldn’t just do it myself, his back completely covered it) and he refused, saying he couldn’t sit there with it down.

This might have been true (well, evidently it was, he was simply too wide for the seat) but it doesn’t seem like I should have had to suffer because HE had a problem due to his extreme size.

Since the flight was only going to be about 90 minutes more I let it go and suffered in silence. (And for hours after that, my back was really screwed up from sitting twisted to one side for so long.)

But since then I’ve been wondering: if I’d appealed to a stewardess, would I have gotten any help? I mean, I’d paid for the use of a seat of whatever width it was, but I was only getting to use maybe 75 or 80% of it.

Did I have a right to insist that the arm rest remain in place to serve as a barrier to his encroachment? Or did he have a right to insist that the arm rest be removed so he could gain the extra space he required?

Is there any type of law about this?

I’m guessing not, but maybe the airlines themselves have rules? If so, I’d love to know which ones come down on the side of the ‘arm rests stay down’ person. In July I will have to fly coast-to-coast, and I absolutely would choose to patronize an airline that would protect me from this kind of intrusion.

2

The airlines generally have rules about people needing to fit in their seats. They’ll give people some leeway, but it sounds like this guy was way over the line into needing to buy 2 seats or a first class seat so he fit comfortably.

If you had talked to the cabin crew, it’s possible you or he would have been moved into another seat for the flight. It’s also possible that he would have been asked to get off. Generally, what I have seen, once the flight has boarded is that people are simply moved. If the flight is full, he might have been told that he had to put his armrest down, giving you a skosh more room.

IOW, you were a trooper, but saying something might have helped you out.

3

I have a friend that travels constantly for business and refuses to sit beside any overweight people who may encroach on his seat or armrest. He will report it as soon as he boards and the flight crew will relocate him to another seat.

I had an overweight lady beside me from Houston to Liberia, CR last month. I tried to be accommodating but got a little pissed when her Bingo arm kept changing the channel and volume on my DirecTV controls.

4

I have requested a seat change twice in such situations. Once I was moved without incident, the second time, there were no empty seats so I got an apology and a voucher.

But definitely speak to the crew and let them handle it.

5

This is an interesting question. I checked the “contract of carriage” document for each of the big 4: American, Delta, Southwest, and United. United was the only one that took an explicit stance against oversized passengers in favor of the people seated near them. The others made at most vague noises.

American: Conditions of carriage − Support − American Airlines

Delta: http://www.delta.com/content/dam/delta-www/pdfs/legal/contract_of_carriage_dom.pdf See pg 14 of the PDF, Rule 35.F.7.

Southwest: https://www.southwest.com/assets/pdfs/corporate-commitments/contract-of-carriage.pdf See pg 19 of the PDF, Section 6.a.(8)(iii)

United: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx Sections 6.I and most of all 21.H.9.

I’m surprised to see that AA, generally regarded as the most pettifogging and legalistic of the bunch has the most vague standards.

it’s also obvious that all these were/are CAB boilerplate dating from back in the Badde Olde Regyulateed Dayes and have been only mildly updated as time has marched on.

The OP is free to check additional carriers. The term to search for is “conditions of carriage”. The more explicit the restrictions on oversized passengers the stronger your stance can be if confronted by a problem at boarding time. Bring along a copy of the relevant bit of the CofC and ask for a customer service supervisor early in the process if the dispute starts not going your way.

Above all remain polite to the crew. They have enormous discretion to help or hurt and all too often the merits of the case take second position to which person is more or less of a jerk to them.

6

This seems to suggest that actual policies in practice for most airlines nominally require oversize passengers to buy an extra seat or upgrade to a class with a bigger seat.

The law itself seems to be even murkier than the airlines’ internal policies. It’s interesting, though, that FAA regulation 14 CFR 121.311 - “Seats, safety belts, and shoulder harnesses”, which among other things requires any airline with a website to publish the sizes of its seats, states that “For purposes of paragraph (k)(1) of this section, the width of a passenger seat means the distance between the inside of the armrests for that seat”. That seems to validate official support for the concept that “your seat” is defined as the space between the armrests, and if you have to flip up the armrest as this person did in order to fit, then it’s likely that the airline screwed up and was in violation of its own policy in letting this person on with just a single economy seat allocation.

7

There at a lot of places on the web saying “The US Federal Aviation Administration mandates that airline passengers be able to sit with seatbelt around them with both arm rests down to fulfill safety requirements”, and also that staff must check that armrests are down at takeoff.

Dunno about actual specific regulations.

8

Thank you all for the replies!

I think that last part – about possibly having him asked to get off the plane – was a major reason I didn’t say anything. It’s all too easy to imagine situations where not arriving somewhere on time would have major bad effects. :frowning:

I didn’t want to hurt him. I just wanted to be able to sit comfortably.

This is good to hear! I think I’ve got to learn to be more ‘aggressive’ on my own behalf. I’m one of those people who will actually just eat the food if the waiter screws up your order. <shrug>

United just moved to the top of my list. :slight_smile: And, yes, I’d absolutely not be a jerk to the crew. It’s not their fault.

Hah! Positively that flight took off with an armrest. The stewardess walked down the aisle checking on seatbelts, but nothing was said about the armrest.

Well, come to think of it, there was probably no way she could have known. Even if it had been down, the bulk of his body would no doubt have hidden it from sight.

Again, thanks for the replies! Likely the situation will never come up again, it’s not like I fly a whole lot, but if it does I will steel myself to actually speaking up.

9

The bit about the seatbelt fitting the passenger around is a bit of a misunderstanding, albeit a common one. That reg is intended to prohibit people too infirm or misshapen or frail to sit in a seat at all, e.g. people on stretchers or who can’t hold their torso up.

Those seatbelt thingies they use for the pre-takeoff demo that have a male & female end on them are NOT just demo devices. They’re actually called “seatbelt extenders” and are used to make the seatbelts even longer for the oversized. There is no regulation limiting on how many of those can be daisy-chained around someone of monstrous girth.

Next time you fly, expand the normal built-in seat belt to its maximum length & buckle it around you. It’s already sized for people much bigger / wider than will fit entirely within the seat pan.

Now imagine adding 18 or 36 inches of extra seatbelt to that loop. A person needing that accommodation still fills the letter of the seat belt law.

The actual details are 14 CFR 121.311. This link eCFR :: 14 CFR Part 121 -- Operating Requirements: Domestic, Flag, and Supplemental Operations (FAR Part 121) is to the official GPO website. The page display is slightly screwed up, you need to scroll up a couple screens to read section 311.

wolfpup’s cite to a subparagraph of the same section is 100% correct, but IMO / IME the conclusion he draws is beyond the regs. That’s about consumer disclosure and nothing more. The airline has to truthfully tell you how wide a seat they’re selling. That doesn’t necessarily mean they commit a violation if your seatmate spills into the space they rented to you.

10

I expect them to enforce passenger size rules right after they get full compliance w/ carryon rules! :dubious:

11

Some common passenger restrictions do not exist in FAA terms including the rule that you have to raise your window shades before take-off and landing to the best of my knowledge. We have looked for it before and it does not exist (again, to the best of my knowledge). The same thing applies to armrests. Those are airline specific rules.

However, there is a catch-all crime called “interfering with a flight crew” that can be a very serious offense that can result in prison time if someone refuses to comply. That can be almost anything that the flight attendants direct you to do.

12

I believe the window shade rule is only for the exit row. Allows one to know if is safe to open the emergency door in an emergency.

13

The rules here have been discussed and they seem vague at best.

Seems to me the best thing you can do is to politely contact the air crew and tell them you have a problem with the large passenger next to you and let them figure it out.

If the flight crew chooses to ignore you and/or does not care I am not sure you have any recourse. Causing a fuss on a plane is likely to land you in deep trouble.

14

Agreed that it’s just a consumer disclosure. To be clear, I didn’t mean “violation” in the sense of violating the federal rule. It’s just that with most airlines’ policies being so vague about oversize passengers, here was a specific metric – a published seat size and a definition of how it’s measured – that an excessively cramped passenger could cite to support the merit of his complaint, that he was not getting the space that was advertised and expected. It is, fundamentally, a consumer rights issue if the airline doesn’t accommodate an oversize passenger properly.

15

“Skosh”–I understand it perfectly, but never heard/saw it before. Where you from, pahdner?

16

The FAA intensively regulates all aspects of the airline biz. The various manuals that describe our various internal procedures are each submitted to, and blessed by, the FAA. At which point they gain the same force of law on us as the stuff published in the CFRs.

I’m mostly familiar with how this plays out for the pilots. But all the detailed procedures in the FA’s manuals are equally binding on them. Which, depending on the carrier, may include things like window shades open for taxi, takeoff, and landing.

As always the airline is trapped between the corporate lawyers’ goal of minimizing potential liability, the regulatory engineers’ desire to impress the FAA with their thoroughness, and the marketing department’s goal to minimize hassling the passengers over minutiae. That tussle settles what goes *into *the manuals.

Then comes the crew force and gate agent force who’re tasked with implementing this drudgery in the face of some level of customer resistance. Some stuff is universally abided by, some stuff is honored more in the breach. Most stuff is in the middle. Finally, each customer-facing worker has their list of pet do’s and don’ts where they apply above-average emphasis vs. their fellow workers.
It’s a funny business. We have 30,000 direct customer face-to-face workers on 6 continents. Plus a further several thousand staffing the phones. All trying to deliver a complicated hand-crafted service product in real time. Outdoors in the weather. While an overbearing and customer-indifferent regulator breathes down their neck. Serving millions of customers per day, 99.999% of whom are OK people while the last 0.001% are criminals actively trying to kill us all.

17

Okay, time for an anecdote:

I guy I know is seriously overweight. Not over the top, but 300+. He knows it and isn’t proud of it. Flying on business he gets put in a center seat. The two on each side of him are husband and wife. To make everyone more comfortable he offers to change seats with either one of them. The wife says, “Oh no, Willard likes the aisle and I like the window.” Then they spend the flight talking to each other across my guy in the center seat.

People ???

18

Takes all kinds, I guess?

I once unlucked into a middle seat between two VERY LARGE gentlemen - not fat at all, but built like major athletes. Very tall, fit no problem into the butt part of the seat but VERY SHOULDER. There was literally no way for them not to make contact with my shoulders. It didn’t occur to me to ask to be moved - it was a full flight anyway, but I felt so bad, they both had their arms crossed hard to try to be as small as possible but there was just no way to avoid touching me.

19

One more:

With service dog in bus. He automatically (on cue) ducks under the seat/bench. Two old ladies, voluble acquaintances on seats 1 & 3 look daggers at me as I get on. I ask if they would like/could move together to enjoy their conversation better. Nope, it’s been a hard day at work and they like their seats.

I sit down in middle, dog underneath. They continue, bitching about work, this and that. I smile, pissed off and basically stunned by their rudeness and the absurdity, but thinking for real that the situation probably sucks for them, and make light of my predicament.

One rips into me, with the other’s assent, how she’ll be damned if she swaps seats with me: a) they paid for their ticket just like I did, and want to talk, b) I shouldn’t even be on the bus with that dog because “it’s against the law.” Now I’m sitting there and the conversation is about me, how “some people” don’t understand respect, whatever. Other passengers are looking at the situation, shaking their heads. I stand up, looking at the other sympathetic faces and say how weird this all.

The crazier off the two ladies is now under the light, and she saves her trump card for last. She’s allergic to dogs.

That last one simply made me laugh at the absurdity.
ETA: still waiting on “skosh.”

20

Japan. :smiley:

That was pretty generous of you, considering that the contortions required on your part screwed up your back for several hours afterward. You paid for a whole seat, and so you were entitled to use the whole seat; the other fellow was (literally and figuratively) out of bounds, and while you needn’t wish ill upon him, it’s perfectly fair to ask the flight crew to provide you with what you paid for, even if it means the overweight fellow has to take the next flight instead.