Should airlines be required to offer obese passengers another seat or two at no extra charge?

[LSLGuy]

@Richard_Pearse: I know you know all this, but you said it so neatly I’ll comment from your comments for context.

@Richard_Pearse

A B737/A320 has been three and three separated by the isle for as long as I can remember and the plane hasn’t got any skinnier.

All Boeing’s narrowbodies from the 707 in 1958, through the now out-of-production 727 and 757, to the still on-going production 737 have exactly the same fuselage interior and exterior width and exactly the same seating abreast (3 and 3). If anything since about 1990 the aisle has gotten slightly narrower and the seats slightly wider (e.g. take 1.5" out of the aisle and distribute it as 1/4" per seat). But that was a one-time change and there’s no more room where that came from.

The only way to make seats wider is to reduce 6-abreast to 5 or 4.

AFAIK all A320-series are the same 3 and 3. The 320 is about 10" wider inside compared to the Boeings, which buys about 1-1/4" in each seat plus the same in the aisle. The difference is small but quite noticeable if you sit in both on the same day.

In terms of fore-and aft spacing, “seat pitch” is the industry unit of measure. But it’s a confusing unit of measure for consumers. Seat pitch refers to the distance from a point on one seat to the same point on the seat ahead or behind. So it’s the sum of passenger leg/torso room and seat thickness. Modern seats are 3-4" thinner front to back than were 1970s seats. So pitch can (and has) shrunk the same 3-4" without any difference in perceived personal space. To be sure, the very budget carriers did not stop there and have reduced leg/torso room even more from back then.

All exacerbated of course by Americans getting taller, wider, and thicker than they were in 1967. And given the skew distribution of people size vs SES, the increasing affordability of air travel post-deregulation and the free-fall in real pricing since has made more of the lower SES bigger folks more able to afford travel.

@Richard_Pearse

@Tride

I haven’t been on a flight that was less than 98% full in years.

Probably a bit of popularity bias here (is that a thing?)

We run just two kinds of flights. 100% full turning standbys away, and significantly empty. The former flights are 95+% of all flights I work. We rarely leave with empty seats. But when we do, we’re not leaving with one or two empty. We’re leaving with 20 or 30 empty. Late last night on a massively delayed f***ed up flight I carried 20 people on an airplane with 170+ passenger seats.

The practical effect is our published “average load factor” is maybe 90% and on holidays more like 95%+. But it’s a barbell distribution with a huge fraction of flights 100% full, and a small fraction of rather empty. Our median flight is definitely 100% full. Like when applied to any skew distribution, the term “average” hide more than it reveals.

[silenus]

Free? Fuck no. Speaking as a person of gravity myself, if I need extra room, I should pay for it.

[Dr.Strangelove]

Put all the seats (and their armrests) on motorized rails so that they can slide laterally. Every passenger pays by the required width. The position of the aisle could vary from row to row, but with some algorithmic shuffling, you can arrange things so that adjacent rows have minimal difference. The aisle might wave back and forth across the whole length, but that’s ok as long as it’s gradual. Some rows might only have four or five seats if you decide to pack obese people side by side.

[LSLGuy]

@Dr.Strangelove

Put all the seats (and their armrests) on motorized rails so that they can slide laterally. Every passenger pays by the required width.

That would require the seat backs to be like an old Ford pickup bench seat. No contouring between spine & shoulders, and no reclining.

[chela]

It would be great to see seats sized for various accommodations to fit big or little people, families with small children and people in wheelchairs who have to gate check their chair! But for most flights of convenience travel, seat comfort, it’s not gong to get better. I also think infants should be in their own airline approved car seat. No lap kids.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

Wow, where and when have you seen that?! And did the passenger at least get their money back?

In the last years of her life, thanks in part to certain medications she needed to take, my wife was what Southwest called a “person of size.” The way it worked was that she was required to buy a second seat when we booked travel. That guaranteed that no one would sit next to her (in effect the two of us had all three seats in a row of three). The deal–or so we were told–was that if the flight was booked, she’d get the adjoining seat for whatever we paid for her assigned seat. If the flight was underbooked, we’d put in for a refund afterward.

We didn’t fly very often during that time, but I remember both scenarios happening. To both of us, it always seemed a pretty reasonable way of handling a complicated situation. But if they had tried to take away her “extra” seat on a fully booked flight–and especially if they had charged her for it anyway–well, we would not have been happy.

[Dr.Strangelove]

You could make the seats and the backs have some minimum width, with a solid structure, but with squishable “wings” on either side. Either made completely from some dense foam, or with an internal rigid system that allows the wings to slide in and out.

[InternetLegend]

I was with the passenger in one instance, and the flight attendant backed down, but it was still embarrassing for her. We’d bought the extra seat purposely because I knew the flight usually ran completely full. In the second instance, it was a person a few rows up and across the aisle, and I believe they relinquished the seat. Both times, the flight attendant brought the last passenger without a seat over, so someone was standing there wanting that seat.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

Thanks for the info. That’s pretty appalling. And here I was thinking…not warm fuzzies about Southwest, exactly, but thinking good for them that they came up with a workable policy, made their policy clear, and were very diplomatic about explaining it to us. May have to rethink that. Glad the flight attendant backed down in the one instance, at least.

[kanicbird]

@snowthx

t. I mean, if someone requires an additional seat for say, their medical equipment that keeps them alive while they are on the flight, then sure, the airline can afford to let that passenger have a free adjoining seat

Since we are comparing them to obesity, what about a person who requires that medical equipment due to a lifestyle choice they made, I mean where do we draw that line.

[Cervaise]

@Procrustus

@Si_Amigo

How do they handle this in Europe?

In my experience, the seats are no bigger but the people are smaller.

Speaking for myself, we handle the unpleasantness of air travel by taking trains at every possible opportunity.

[Broomstick]

@ParallelLines

It’s not an ideal situation, but it reflects the costs fliers are willing to bear with. Honestly, with the needs for additional security, the fight over baggage sizes and costs, and the predatory pricing schemes (for the luggage, etc), I’ve pretty much ruled out flying for anything that I could drive in a day. And that leaves out the equally predatory costs of renting a vehicle, about which we’ve had various threads.

Personally, I’ve been riding Amtrak for my long distance trips. Doesn’t work for every destination but I encourage people to try it.

Makes me long for the days before airlines were de-regulated. Sure, flying cost more but it was a hell of a lot more comfortable.

Yes, let’s mandate larger minimum seats. So what if it costs more? It will be healthier and less stressful. Maybe with that we’d have fewer episodes of people acting out. Flying costs more? Cry me a river, you get what you pay for. Everyone is complaining about how horrible flying is but no one wants to actually impose a real solution. And I say that as someone who has always flown commercial on a tight budget and who does not have a lot of money for travel.

Back to topic - look, I’m sorry it’s uncomfortable to be obese and fly, but airlines can’t afford to give away space given their current business models. (Frankly, I’m not entirely sure current business models for airlines are actually sustainable long term). Extra-tall people have to buy upgrades. Extra-wide people do, too.

@Tride

How? This is a generic product they are offering–a seat. You either fit in that space or you don’t, toddler to adult.

One problem is that the seats are getting so small that even small adults (short and thin) are having problems fitting into the seat.

@LSLGuy

Essentially this is trying to turn cramped cabins into a safety issue that properly falls under FAA, rather than a consumer protection issue that properly falls under a different and much less powerful department of DOT or the unrelated FTC’s consumer protection watchdog folks. It’s not batshit insane to recognize the safety implications of cramped conditions are non-zero, but that’s not the real motivation here.

I’m 5’3" tall and I barely fit into an economy seat last time I flew commercial - and that was over 20 years ago now, I hear they’ve gotten even smaller. My knees were knockin’ the seat back in front of me and I could barely move the entire flight. Yes, I think there’s a safety issue there. There’s the obvious difficulty of even getting into or out of such a confined space, but the “can barely move” part contributes to things like DVT/blood clots. I think the crowding contributes to some of the bad behavior and acting out because such confined spaces are very stressful.

@Omar_Little

There are many scholarly articles written arguing the constitutional right under Article 14 to travel, including air travel. Some have even argued that it is a basic human right under UN declarations.

No one is being denied a right to travel if airlines raise their prices. There are other options: cars, buses, trains. You arguably have even more right to food and shelter but with few exceptions no one is getting those for free.

@Sam_Stone

Won’t anyone think of global warming? Advocating for more leg room and bigger seats is equivalent to advocating for more CO2 per passenger mile in aircraft, which are already large CO2 emitters. For that matter, we should be eliminating first class seating, which has a much larger per-seat CO2 budget than economy. It’s a surprisingly large amount.

I think if airline seats were made humane (because the current economy variety sure aren’t) the prices would rise sufficiently that there would be fewer people going by air. It might result in no greater CO2 overall than at present. Maybe even less.

I also think we should start putting as much money and support into alternatives to airplanes as we currently do into flying (and keep in mind, I’m a pilot - I’m not inherently anti-aviation). More options are a good thing, and a lot of those options are better for the environment than flying is.

@cincinnatus

I’ve always been puzzled why air carriers do not set fares with passenger weight somehow calculated heavily in the result. Weight is the key to a successful flight, right?

In the early days of flight they actually insisted on weighing each passenger along with their luggage. Of course, airplanes were a lot smaller back then, and the smaller the airplane the more critical passenger weight is.

Modern airliners are so huge that the weight of the passengers can be averaged out, and a passenger getting out of their seat and walking around the airplane does not require the pilots to compensate for the weight-and-balance changes.

But due to cultural reasons there was a LOT of consternation about weighing passengers back in the day, especially women. These days it would cause a lot of yellin’ and screamin’

@Thudlow_Boink

I’m not sure what I think about the proposal, but it does make a certain amount of sense if we think of obesity as a disability. There are plenty of other situations where we don’t make the disabled person bear the cost of their accommodations.

There are also plenty of instances where we DO make the disabled pay the extra costs of being disabled. Hell, there are extra costs imposed by being female that are just now being acknowledged.

[kayaker]

@RitterSport

Instead, people go for the cheapest tickets, regardless of how tightly the airline packs people in.

I buy the cheapest possible seat, and I fit in it. If there were an option for a standing ticket (like riding a city bus) I’d go for that if it were cheaper.

When I board a plane, the first thing I do when I sit down is to put down my armrests. If another passenger attempts to raise my/our armrest I’m going to mention it to a flight attendant.

[elbows]

About that weighing the passengers thing, ages ago, back when I was in SAmerica, I was particularly wary of airline safety. Being especially taken aback to see an airline we were booked to fly, weighing passengers as they check in. Hubs was all, ‘calm down, it’s nothing, maybe they don’t have scales at home?’, um…no. More likely they’ve taken on a questionable amount of ‘air freight’, to help profits and want to know how much wiggle room they have! It was an old plane, a dodgy airline, (our luggage was in the cabin!), but we did arrive safely.

Just recently I learned something that changed how I viewed that episode. Recently saw a news story of an airline announcing, for two days it would weigh all passengers. Of course, the weight was not revealed to anyone. It turns out airlines do this, from time to time, to ensure their calculated weight averages, for a plane full of passengers, is accurate. In North America those numbers are always climbing it seems.

[HMS_Irruncible]

Really simple. Every passenger has to pass through a narrow portal the size of the airplane’s armrests.

If they cannot simply walk through the portal, if they have to turn sideways or step a leg back as leverage to push themselves through, then they are subject to “oversize passenger mitigation.”

This mitigation would be:

• If the flight isn’t full, seat the person somewhere that isn’t adjacent to another passenger, and doesn’t obstruct the aisle or emergency exits. Preferably bulkhead seating. This would be free of charge. If no such economy class seat is available, but business class is available, they can get a deeply discounted upgrade to business class.
• If the flight is full, the person is bumped. On the next flight, if it’s also full, they are offered the right to buy out their seat neighbor(s) at half fare. The airline eats the other half of that fare, plus of bumping the neighbors.
• If 2-3 oversized passengers want to team up and squash in without encroaching on other passengers, or obstructing aisles or emergency exits, then they can do that free of charge.

Note - this isn’t supposed to be ideal for everyone, it’s supposed to be the least miserable for all parties involved, without banning oversize passengers from the airline. Big people are part of society and we need to accommodate them.

[Saint_Cad]

I agree with the others that one issue is how little room us livestock are given. I am 6 foot, 200 pounds and while width-wise modern day planes are tolerable, though uncomfortable when I was 250 lb, I have to get (usually pay extra for) an aisle seat because I have to stretch my legs out because of a knee issue. I guess that some here think that the extra fee is appropriate considering I hurt my knee playing sports viz, a lifestyle choice I made.

If the seats were further apart and wider so that a majority of people could fit comfortably then paying for a second seat may be a valid argument. Others have talked about the extra money per ticket that having fewer seats would have. I claim that is a non-issue because airlines are gouging us anyways for as much as we can afford. Do you know there used to not be bag fees? They were implemented when fuel became expensive and [not] surprisingly stayed when fuel prices drop. Back in my day, you didn’t have to pay for seats unless you were in a better section, but never for an individual desired seat. And yet we still pay full price for our ticket to begin with. That’s why I laugh at people that rail against Spirit because of having to pay for all of the extras … I’m flying out for a week this summer on an airline known to pull sitting passengers off planes and destroy guitars. I got the cheapest tickets at $450. Bag fees and seat fees added $180 to that - a 40% markup for what used to be free. So no, added cost to the passenger is not the true argument here although I’m sure the airlines will use it as an excuse to charge everyone more.

[snowthx]

@kanicbird

Since we are comparing them to obesity, what about a person who requires that medical equipment due to a lifestyle choice they made, I mean where do we draw that line.

That’s one of the problems with all this - how does anyone know why someone is obese? If someone elderly in a wheelchair is boarding, we make a non-judgemental assumption about their condition. If a kid with crutches and leg braces is boarding, we make a non-judgemental assumption about their condition. But when a large person is boarding, we make a judgemental assumption about their condition (probably because of the risk to our personal comfort, if they happen to sit next to us).

I think if someone needs an extra adjoining seat they should be afforded the opportunity to purchase one and not risk having to give it away if the plane is over sold. I dont think providing a free seat is fair to everyone else, nor a large person assuming they can shoe-horn themselves into a standard economy seat. But if obesity is somehow made into a protected class across the nation, then there will always be this judgemental question as to why someone is obese.

[Jegpeg]

Airline profit margins are pretty thin, probably thinner than the days of no baggage fees, or fees to select you own seat and a meal provided at no extra charge.

In the 90s discount carriers came in offering seats for $1 where the no discount carriers might have charged $200. In reality the $1 fares were almost impossible to get but you might manage to book something for $50 but have to pay another $50 in “tax” which turns out to them passing on airport fees and if you want to take luggage and have a meal you were getting close to the $200 of the traditional carriers but everyone rushed to book with the discount airlines with their cheap headline fares so the traditional airlines had to foollow suit. In the UK it became law that you had to include compulsary charges in the headline figures but airlines continue to attempt to find new ways to add “optional” charges not to make more from customers as much as to be able ot advertise lower fares. A few years ago Ryanair tried to introduce a charge for using the toilet but the reaction was so harsh they were forced to retract. More recently charging for cabin luggage has become a thing on the airlines with cheaper headline fares.

[Cheesesteak]

@Richard_Pearse

Something important is you don’t need to sell the passenger two seats, you can get away with selling them 1.5 seats and pair them up with someone else who’s purchased an empty adjacent seat.

What a great solution, at least in planes that have rows 3 across. 2 passengers pay for 3 seats, the airline gets 3 seats of revenue for 3 seats being used, passengers get the extra space they need without paying double. The biggest risk the airline takes is having half of a seat unsold in a plane that is otherwise fully booked.

[Ulfreida]

I think anything which discourages people from flying is a good thing. It is a very significant chunk of fossil fuel use.

I think they should take out all the seats and make people stand, strapped to partitions. “It’s a Small World After All” should be playing continuously.