# On airlines, should obese people have to pay extra before boarding? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333 "2014-01-21T01:28:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/41 "2014-01-21T19:14:05Z")
> [@Cyros](#): > > I don’t believe you are contracting an amount of space. Your contract with the airline is to move you from point A to point B. Can you cite to anything that would indicate that you are contracting for a specific amount of space that the airline must provide? The fact that they assigned the seat to you, and not the guy next to you. ---
**Author:** ![Cyros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Cyros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyros)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/42 "2014-01-21T19:37:10Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The fact that they assigned the seat to you, and not the guy next to you. They’ve given you the square footage of the cushion to plant your butt into (without ever guaranteeing a set area) but have made no statements with regards to the amount of space surrounding that cushion which can be considered for your personal use. They have not made any statements that can be taken to be a guarantee that you will not be touching another person or that you will be comfortable. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/43 "2014-01-21T19:54:36Z")
> [@Cyros](#): > > They’ve given you the square footage of the cushion to plant your butt into (without ever guaranteeing a set area) but have made no statements with regards to the amount of space surrounding that cushion which can be considered for your personal use. They have not made any statements that can be taken to be a guarantee that you will not be touching another person or that you will be comfortable. Exactly. It’s the same logic the airlines use to deny a person who has purchased two seats double the number of frequent flyer miles or twice the standard carryon luggage allowance. You’re technically buying carriage, not a seat (and all the amenities that go with it). I can’t imagine there’d be any legal remedies at all unless the squished person literally could not fit into the seat (which is usually not the case) or suffered documented injuries as a direct result of being squashed. (In those cases, the distressed passenger may be able to make the claim that the airline failed to provide an adequately safe environment, which it is obligated by law to do.) ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/44 "2014-01-22T00:55:40Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > … > > In addition, they should design planes with more space by removing seats, maybe have a lounge area. Right now, everyone’s forced to sit in a tiny seat for the whole duration of the flight. If I had my way, planes would be designed more like a recreation area, with seats off to one side and an open area for people to walk around in and lounge about. not safe. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/45 "2014-01-22T01:11:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Has anyone ever sued, or even gotten a partial refund, for not getting full use of the space they paid for? Cite that you’re paying for space, not carriage? Because guess what, you’re not. I’m bigger than you, I need more space. I’m going to take it. Also guess what? I guarantee I’m less comfortable than you. Deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/46 "2014-01-22T04:25:08Z")
How is it not safe? Unless there’s turbulence, I don’t see the point of forcing everyone into a seat. I want to get up and walk around ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/47 "2014-01-22T23:48:37Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > How is it not safe? Unless there’s turbulence, I don’t see the point of forcing everyone into a seat. I want to get up and walk around Turbulence can be unpredictable. It would be fun, from your point of view, but from the the flight attendent’s point of view, staying seated and buckled up makes their job easier. And a bunch of drunk people milling around a longue falling over each other and trying to get back to their seats in an emergency, ugh. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/48 "2014-01-23T00:21:29Z")
I think so. It’s come to the the point that I won’t fly unless it’s business class. I’ve been tortured to the point of injury by people that really ought to buy two tickets. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/49 "2014-01-23T00:56:37Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I think airfare should be higher and go back to being more of a luxury instead of a cheap alternative. Raise the cost of seats but in its place, get rid of all extra costs and make the seats bigger to accommodate not simply the average person, but the 90 or 95 percentile of people in terms of size. So if the 95th percentile of people is 250 pounds and 6 feet tall, then design all seats like that and stop trying to cram everyone in. … you realize they [have](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_class_(aviation))[that](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_class), right? ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/50 "2014-01-23T03:33:52Z")
> [@andros](#): > > … you realize they [have](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_class_(aviation))[that](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_class), right? Those seats come with extra service frills that drastically raise their price. Where are the wider seats that DON’T come with all the pricy, unneeded amenities? (They do exist on some international long haul flights, but are vanishingly rare on domestic flights.) ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/51 "2014-01-23T04:05:35Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > Those seats come with extra service frills that drastically raise their price. Where are the wider seats that DON’T come with all the pricy, unneeded amenities? > > (They do exist on some international long haul flights, but are vanishingly rare on domestic flights.) I used to fly between LAX and Dallas a lot. For a brief period, there was an airline called Legend Airlines. Oh, how I loved that airline. They had basically converted the entire cabin to business class seating. The flights took a bit longer than other airlines (I think because they used smaller planes). The fares were pricier than average coach price at the time, but nowhere near typical business class fares. And of course, because nobody is ever allowed to have nice things, the airline went bankrupt. The usual story is that American temporarily converted some of its planes to match Legend and then intentionally ran those planes at a loss to undercut Legend. And then that they sued Legend into the ground. I don’t know how true all of that is, but I’ve heard repeatedly similar stories with large airlines temporarily undercutting small airlines in order to drive them into the ground and then abandoning the service the smaller airline was providing. Our whole airline pricing system is completely screwed up. Personally, I think we should examine the structure of the airline system top-to-bottom. There’s a lot of literature out there that suggests that if we want a functional airline transport system, with routine service to smaller airports, that we’re going to have to put some sort of cross-subsidies into the system (such as, perhaps, requiring airlines to charge a flat-rate per mile on all service in the network, rather than having different rates on different routes). Other suggestions include things like opening the domestic airline system to foreign competition or making airline terminals the sole responsibility of the Federal government, rather than the mix of Federal, state and private airline spending it currently is. I also think we should seriously invest in both high-speed and low-speed rail. It’s much cheaper to provide wider seats on rail, and there are lots of places in the country where rail could be complementary to the existing airline system. And before anyone rushes in here to tell me that rail is not competitive, nothing is competitive. Every transportation system we have in this country, whether its cars or rail or airlines or subways already has a heavy amount of government intervention and subsidies. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/52 "2014-01-23T04:28:33Z")
The flaw in the Legend legend is that if their model was so in demand, wouldn’t the majors pick up on it? I can see them conspiring to bankrupt a small carrier, but they’ve still got to compete amongst themselves as well. You’d think it’d be a no brainer. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/53 "2014-01-23T05:31:53Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > The flaw in the Legend legend is that if their model was so in demand, wouldn’t the majors pick up on it? I can see them conspiring to bankrupt a small carrier, but they’ve still got to compete amongst themselves as well. You’d think it’d be a no brainer. The flaw in your reasoning is that you have an implicit assumption that the airline market is a perfectly efficient, competitive market. It’s not. I honestly never understand this. People who don’t have an understanding of market economics past econ 101 run around lecturing people on how markets work. There are all sorts of efficiency problems in the airline market. I outlined a potential case of anti-competitive behavior, and instead of giving me evidence that the airline market is able to clear anti-competitive behavior, your response is essentially to assert that the airline market is fully competitive. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/54 "2014-01-23T05:43:53Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > The flaw in the Legend legend is that if their model was so in demand, wouldn’t the majors pick up on it? I can see them conspiring to bankrupt a small carrier, but they’ve still got to compete amongst themselves as well. You’d think it’d be a no brainer. Except that maybe the Legend model would divert passengers who previously paid for a business class seat that makes 80% margin to a wide cattle class seat that now makes 40% margin. Why would they want to do something that would canabalise their own more profitable market? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333/55 "2014-02-03T03:17:49Z")
Nah. If they need an extra seat, they can pay for that. Otherwise you might as well just give a discount for being underweight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-airlines-should-obese-people-have-to-pay-extra-before-boarding/679333.md?page=2)