As long as we are in IMHO, I’ll express my 6’3" 205# HO that I don’t understand why people complain so much about plane seats. Sure, they are uncomfortable, but so is so much of air travel. The idea of someone under 6’ claiming they are in pain due to insufficient legroom impresses me as at least a tad exaggerated.
Of course, whenever possible, I address it by ponying up for first class. People seem to place a high value on cheap air travel, so don’t complain about the discomfort and indignities.
I also don’t believe people who claim those extra couple of degrees reclining their seat back makes a big difference. Certainly not enough to outweigh being a dick to the person behind you. But the airlines allow reclining so recline away and be a dick.
Obese people? I’ve never really understood why obese people are not weighed, but there is a weight limit on checked luggage. If this guy weighs 100# more than me, I should get 100# more luggage (or he gets zero.)
If the large person does not want to buy an extra seat (and get it honored by the airline), maybe the best decision is to make large people sit next to each other. That way, if their body flows over the armrest or they want the armrests up, they are crowding another such person.
I’ll readily give up the armrests on either side. I’ve long since given up any thought of fighting over armrests on a plane or in a theater. But dammit, I ought to get the space going vertically from my seat to the airplane roof on the insides of my 2 armrests. Maybe they could install some sort of vertical buffer that could be extended to allow each person to avoid encroachment upon their seat space? (Of course, I’m the kind of idiot who thinks I ought to be allowed the overhead compartment above my seat…!)
At this very instant as I type I’m sitting in row 19. It’s an ordinary coach seat on an ordinary name brand US airline. Not the expanded space rows in the front of coach, nor in / near an exit row. Just a bog standard coach seat, which comprise about 140 of the 170+ total seats on board. It happens to be a 737 MAX.
I’m 5’10" and admittedly skinny. I’m also relatively long of legs and short of torso. With my non-fat rump pushed back gently against the seat back so I’m sitting upright, not slouched, there’s about 5" from the front of my knees to the seatback ahead of me. Which seatback is fully reclined.
Given typical proportions of humans, for my upper legs to grow those 5" and bump the seat ahead of me, the rest of me would have to grow ~12" (5" in lower leg, and 5-7" in torso), so roughly 17" total. That’d make me over 7’ tall for a still-skinny guy. Now for sure, what hurts big folks is they’re a lot thicker front to back so with their rump against the seat back their hips are farther ahead of the seat back which in turn pushes their knees forward a few inches even if they’re the same height I am.
Are there bargain basement airlines with tighter seat spacing? Sure. But if you buy a coach ticket on a mainstream US carrier your seat space will be close to mine though.
Admittedly seat width is a real problem. I’m comfy in a coach-width seat, but only when the person next to me is slender / small too. There are lots of meatier Americans who between elbows and shoulders and hips don’t really fit in the width available and so intrude into mine.
As I’m typing on my tablet in my lap it’s all but impossible to keep both elbows inside the inner edges of my my armrests; doable, but real unnatural. In fact it’s hard to keep them within the outer width either; I’m comfy only with a bit of elbow sticking out into the aisle and into the airspace of my seat-mate. Who’s also my bed-mate, so she’s used to my bony elbows invading her space She’s reading now, which puts her elbows naturally where mine aren’t. A couple days ago on another flight I sat next to another rather slender guy and we had a lotta elbow collisions until we decided who was going to do what when.
In some ways, I’m surprised they don’t perform a weigh-in for passengers.
When I was in the .mil, aircraft weight & balance was a big deal, it is part of the safety in flight planning. They would use a standard weight for every passenger, but it wasn’t necessarily the most accurate method. I suppose they err on the side of caution, but with them trying to pare everything to the bone, fuel economy and such, a sharp pencil and everything, they could nail it down more precisely.
And really, really piss everybody off. I mean, more than they already are. What’s not to like? /jk
I tend to try to avoid casual contact with others when possible, so sitting “self contained”, with my arms inside the width of my shoulders and my hands on my lap is my well-ingrained default. I never use a device on planes, and instead, have a book in my hands and on my lap. Works for me, but clearly not everyone.
Yes, airplane seats suck. But when modest-sized people without major physical impairments grossly exaggerate their discomfort, perhaps I react in an outsized manner.
Flying to Chicago w wife for for a multi-day her-family event. Hands / elbows inside armrests is easy for watching or reading a book. Less so for typing on a tablet or small laptop. The last time I took a physical book on a trip was probably 2005; too heavy / bulky.
There is plenty of market research that clearly shows the public would love larger seats. But by and large refuses to pay the economically necessary price for them. If somehow FAA did mandate we pull 20% of the seats out to make them all bigger, there’d be lots of complaining and a lot of people would be priced out of flying.
I suspect that eventually the crowds would come back at the new higher price, but no major airline has successfully done an [all business class seating] product and made it work. These folks are trying; it may be a product whose time has come. Or not. JSX Airlines
That’s the root of the question, really. Are they offering you a seat on a plane from here to there, or are they offering you a fare to carry you from here to there?
How that is interpreted/written comes to the meat of it. If it’s the former, then yeah, two seats for sure. If it’s the second, then they need to accommodate you if possible. Now as a fat guy, I don’t think that means they have to accommodate you on the flight of your choice; you might have to wait a good while to get your free extra seat when they can do it without inconveniencing someone else.
FWIW, my wife is perfectly good with having to pay for the second seat, just so long as she can get it. She is aware that seats are what they have to sell, and can’t see why anyone should be guaranteed a free second seat. She’s happy with Southwest’s accommodation, but doesn’t think she should have a legal right even to that.
I’m one of the people who would really benefit from an extra seat. Luckily, I’ve always managed to fit into a regular one (without an extension, even). But I have to put this out there:
If you DO buy an extra seat, are you even guaranteed that your two seats will be together??? Especially these days, where seat selection is random, costs extra, or is simply unavailable?
eta: @InternetLegend is talking about precisely this dilemma.
I’ve been weighed somewhat recently before a flight. Both times it was a helicopter. They had me stand on a scale, and the weight was only visible to the person checking me in, not to me or to passengers looking over my shoulder. They assigned seats based on the weights. No one yelled or complained.
I’m shocked by all the tall people who don’t have trouble with their knees bumping into the seat in front of them. Because I’m 5’6", and I’ve had people fail to recline the seat in front of me because as they started to recline, the seat ground painfully into my knees.
It hasn’t happened in a while, mostly because I’ve started paying for more space. I’m a fan of Jet Blue. Even their regular seats are okay, and their “even more space” seats aren’t crazy expensive and are luxurious.
(I have had no issues with the width of the seats, except once when i was seated next to an extremely obese person. It was clearly even worse for them than for me, so i tried to be a good sport.)
A 300 mile flight is roughly an hour in the air, but you need to add on drive to the airport, park & shuttle to the terminal, security, & boarding ½ hr before flight time + get from airport to end destination on the other end, all while being subject to restrictions - no pocket knife/toothpick, no drinks, special shampoo, shaving cream, & toothpaste containers (because a regular tube of toothpaste, with barely enough for about two brushings left in it is still in a container that’s too large) cavity searches from the surly attituded brown blue shirts. It’s really not that much of a time savings over driving (or rail, if it goes to your destination). I just won’t fly short distances as it’s not worth it.
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My last three flights were
Unplanned; get here ASAP, she’s dying, Amtrak would have added a couple of hours to my ETA
1000 mile flight, 3 day weekend- 24+ hrs via Amtrak each way
2000 mile flight, 5 days there - 52-58 hrs via Amtrak each way
All three were about the destination, not the journey & to have the two that were planned take me almost as long in travel as I’m there seems crazy. Rail travel thru the West can be pretty & is on my bucket list; thru the Northeast Corridor; however, not so nice as a lot of it is behind industrial areas.
It’s not your overall height that is the issue here folks. It’s leg room. I’m 5’10" but I have a 36" inseam. My legs are pressed against the seat in front of me on many planes. It is hell on a long flight.
I sympathize, although as a short and short-legged person I have never shared your experience. However, I have sat next to a lot of tall and long-limbed people in airline seats, and in general, I would far rather sit next to a heavy/fat person.
IME, fat people (and I’m no willowy waif myself, although I do fit into airline seats without difficulty) are a lot softer and more comfortable to be squoze up against than non-fat tall people with wide shoulders and long limbs. Also IME, fat people in the US tend to have been bullied and shamed to the point where they (especially women) are often very apologetic about inadvertent contact with neighbors, and they try to lean into their own corner and keep out of their neighbors’ way as much as possible. (Not that the bullying and shaming is a good thing, but I appreciate the fact that many of its victims have been charitable enough to feel concerned about my comfort when sitting next to them. I don’t give any seatmate a hard time about being fat or about inadvertent contact, natch.)
Tall lanky people, on the other hand (especially men), have generally not been socialized to feel ashamed or apologetic about the space their bodies take up, and they are not so sensitive to the discomfort they may cause their neighbors by needing extra room. When a tall guy doesn’t fit comfortably in the confines of his airline seat next to me, IME the next thing is that his knee is in my footwell and his shoulder is in my ear and his elbow is in my ribs, and it is not a soft contact. I have gotten off some of those transatlantic flights with literal bruises from sitting next to tall guys.
I don’t give the tall guys a hard time either about their bodies being in my seat space, of course. It’s not like they can help the fact that airline seats are too small for them, any more than fat people can. (No nitpicking arguments about fat people being able to lose weight and fit in the seats better, please, because even if we accept the premise that all fat people are ultimately in complete control of their size, it’s completely unrealistic to expect that they’ll be able to become significantly smaller in the short time interval between booking a flight and boarding it.)
So in general, I am solidly on Team Give Plane Passengers Adequate Accommodation For Their Bodies Without Expecting All Bodies To Be The Same Size. That goes for the tall as well as the fat passengers, besides those like me who are fortunate enough to be adequately accommodated by a standard seat (when we don’t have a larger neighbor needing to take up half of it, at least).
She’s reading now, which puts her elbows naturally where mine aren’t. A couple days ago on another flight I sat next to another rather slender guy and we had a lotta elbow collisions until we decided who was going to do what when.