Nm
This might be hard to prove if you didn’t take any photos of the woman taking up 1/5 of your seat. And you said nothing about it to airline hostess so the airline could say you made no complains the whole flight so you couldn’t had been that uncomfortable . I don’t think you have a good case.
I assume that standard bump rules apply - IIRC, if you go voluntarily, you get whatever they offer; if it’s involuntary, it’s $200 ($400 if you have to wait more than 2 (or is it 4?) hours) plus a free transfer.
Are you ever charged for changing a flight if it’s not your choice/fault? I had a flight to Chicago delayed to the point where I missed a connection, so they let me change to a later connection for free.
I thought filmore was talking about bumping yourself from a non-full flight.
Yeah. I was wondering if you wanted to bump yourself assuming they couldn’t find another seat on the same plane (a full flight). I could see preferring to take the next flight rather than be squished for several hours.
I was once in the aisle seat and the man next to me was so large, my upper body stuck out into the aisle. It was so bad that when the steward brought the drinks cart down the aisle that I hand to stand up at my seat to let them get by.
Next time this happens I’ll raise it as a safety of flight issue as I could not possibly attain the crash position in the event of an emergency.
It is first world. I’ve talked to people taking a bus in a developing country where all kinds of people and animals ride. If they cant ride they stand and if they cant fit inside they hang on the outside. And if an animal poops on you, a baby barfs on you, a woman lactates on you… oh well.
I also heard some other countries airlines can be just as nutty. For example, forget “No Smoking” areas - everyone smokes on those flights.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the demolition derby we went to a few weeks ago. Each row in the grandstands seats 38 people. 38 average people. 38 average people from 1936. Larger people need to get two seats. However I know this will not happen, so next year, I plan on buying an extra seat. Three seats for two people, just so we can have the extra room.
On an airplane, this is not really a viable option. It’s expensive. But something needs to be done. I took a 7 hour flight with my family, and was next to my father the whole time. He was 6’2’’ and about 250. He was spilling over into my seat the whole flight.
Are these the same people that use the motorized shopping carts at Walmart and aren’t disabled?
Japan to Detroit with a plus-sized seat mate. I spent the whole trip hanging part way into the aisle. The flight attendants looked like they were ready to tell me to move over, but would notice my seat mate and just smile and move on. Every time I would get up, when I came back the arm rest would be up, and I would have to share skin space with her. When she would get up, I would lower it back down. Weight aside, she was a rather pleasant person, so it wasn’t that horrible.
Or third? :eek:
Ultimately the seats are too small for the average 2015 person. That’s the crux of the problem. I think they were made in 1948 when people were smaller and shorter. The airlines are more concerned with jamming as many people in as possible without any regard to the fact that people are larger overall, fatter and taller than they used to be. That’s a recipe for anyone larger than the 1948 average to have conflicts with their neighbors for one reason or another.
I think where government regulation should come in, is that seat widths and pitches ought to be sufficient to accommodate all but the largest 10% of Americans without slopping over into adjacent seats and rubbing up against their occupants, or being unable to avoid bumping the back of the seat in front of you.
If that means the airlines have to go to larger planes, or go to 3-and-2 seating in the planes they’ve got, then so be it.
The other thing is, require that airlines allow people to buy extra seats if they want to, whether they need them or not. When I’m flying with my son, I’m an average-sized adult and he’s skinny even for an eight year old, so we only need 2 seats, but I’d sure like to buy the third seat in our row, just so we don’t have to worry about having to be squeezed by some super-sized guy. Sure, it would add 50% to the cost of our flight, but I can afford it and I’m willing to pay it.
Tried doing this on Southwest recently, and I thought I’d succeeded, but as my son and I were boarding the plane, the lady at the gate said, basically, “Hey! why do you need an extra seat?” and they took away my extra seat and gave it to another passenger, because wanting rather than needing one isn’t good enough, even if you’ve paid upfront for that seat.
If they kept the older standards it wouldn’t be so bad. As times progressed the seats have in fact gotten smaller.
It’s free if you buy it in advance as well. My wife is a woman of size, if that’s the phrase they’re using these days, so she does this. For years, their policy was that she’d get a refund for the extra seat if it wasn’t a full flight, but if the flight was full, she’d have to pay for the seat.
This made perfect sense to us - in one case, she wasn’t keeping them from selling the seat to someone else, but in the other, she was - but a few years back, they changed the policy so that the extra seat was free, regardless of whether the flight was full.
Come to think of it, that may be why they didn’t let me have my extra seat (see post #53): I wouldn’t have wanted or asked for a refund, but they may not have been set up to not allow me a refund for my extra seat.
That bullshit would make me furious. They should treat that seat like any other if you paid for it. If they overbooked, they ask for voluntiers. You could (if you wanted) voluntier your empty seat.
I sure hope you got a refund.
Just to be clear, I don’t care that they give a free seat. Even at average size, I’d rather the big dude next to me had two seats anyway. I’m more surprised that the airlines give away free anything.
Here’s a thought.
I’m 5’10" and 180 pounds. I fit comfortably into the current seats. As does the rest of my family.
Increase the seat size to accommodate fat Americans and my flight becomes more expensive.
Screw that.
Find a way of charging for how much so ace you use.
Yes, they did refund my money. It was just that I wanted the seat more than I wanted the money - that’s why I paid for it, after all.
And yes, at the time, I was pissed.
And my thought still is: seats are what they have to sell. If some people want to buy extra seats near them just to have extra room to spread out, how is that a problem for them? They can add more flights profitably if enough people decide they like buying multiple seats.
After all, the reason most flights are full these days is that the airlines cut back on the number of flights so that they didn’t have unused capacity. If they need more flights, they can add 'em back in.
No they’re not.