From this site:
Southwest Airlines recorded improvement in on-time arrival percentage (82.6% in 2002 from 81.7% in 2001), involuntary denied boarding rates (1.09 per 10,000 passengers in 2002 from 1.50 per 10,000 passengers in 2001), mishandled baggage rates (3.52 per 1,000 passengers in 2002 compared to 4.77 per 1,000 passengers in 2001), and customer complaint rates (0.33 per 100,000 passengers in 2002 compared to 0.38 per 100,000 passengers in 2001). **Southwest Airlines is consistently the airline with the lowest customer complaint rate in the industry **(0.33 per 100,000 passengers in 2002 compared to an industry rate of 1.22 per 100,000 passengers).
(bolding mine)
I’ve been flying Southwest a lot lately and of the last 8 flights, one was late by 10 minutes - on a day when the weather was terrible. I won’t pretend that I find the flights a luxurious way to spend a few hours, but they’re no worse than some and lots better than others.
Oh for the love of Pete. This thread has really become absurd.
MOL doesn’t like people using her seat on a flight. Personally, I don’t blame her.
This has nothing to do with size, it has to do with consideration.
Just the same as a small person should take steps to confine themselves to their own seat, so should a large person. I’ve flown extensively, trans-Atlantic, through the US and cross Canada and I’ve never had someone encroaching on my seat. I’ve sat beside large people and they managed to stay confined to thier own space.
MOL sait the lady in the op lifted the arm-rest to have more room. That’s rude. Plain, old rude. *I would like to lift the arm-rest so I can have my purse beside me, and maybe pull one of my legs up. However, I don’t do this because it’s rude.
This has nothing to do with larger people being targeted and everything to do with people wanting more than their fair share of space.
To sum up.
I’ve sat beside large people. They stayed in their seat, I stayed in mine. It’s not that hard. Yes you sacrifice comfort, but it’s an economy flight.
The lady in the OP was rude. Plain and simple. It has nothing to do with her size.
Knew I should’ve put a smirky thing after my comment…
Southwest does not assign seating, true. However, they also don’t enforce your right to have two seats even if you’ve bought them. If someone decides they want to sit there, you can’t stop them. If the flight attendant notices the seat is empty and tells the gate to admit a standby passenger, you can’t stop them. Southwest will not guarantee that your second seat (which you have to pay for if you want to fly Southwest) will remain unbooked and empty.
What was all that talk about “buying a seat”? On Southwest, you can’t.
Again, this policy is not intended to ensure the comfort of obese pasengers or even of non-obese passengers. It’s intended to discourage obese people from choosing to fly Southwest.
SuaSponte, I’d be sympathetic to a weight argument if it actually made any sense. It doesn’t, given current ticketing practices. When airlines start charging by the pound for luggage, they can charging by the pound for passengers, too. And in that case, I want a “no luggage credit” every time I fly without checked bags.
Indygrrl, if that statement were true, then obese people would be constantly increasing in weight. Most aren’t. Most obese individuals I know maintain a roughly stable weight that happens to be higher than the medical establishment considers “acceptable”. Therefore, it is obviously not true that most obese people have more intake calories than they expend. Either that, or the previously claimed thesis, that “calories in minus calories out equal weight gain” is false. Y’all can’t have it both ways.
I don’t think there’s anything obvious about your statement. If I didn’t watch my calories and exercise, I would get fat–simple. If you don’t believe that most overweight people are overeaters and inactive, then I don’t know what to tell you. The statistics are there to prove it.
I don’t care if people are fat. It’s none of my business. I just think it’s fucked when they try to act like they’re helpless against it. We all have a choice.
Wanna back that up? I’ve purchased extra seats on Southwest, and they’ve ALWAYS found a way to accommodate me. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS. The flight attendants can and do ask other passengers to find another seat.
Even so, if you buy an extra seat, it is YOUR responsibility to be at the airport within a reasonable time in order to be able to claim your preferred seating. The rest of us have to do that, and so should you.
Robin
Um, that wasn’t my argument; that was a throwaway line.
My actual argument is that my reasonable expectation when I purchase a ticket is that I get a seat all to myself, and if that I were told ahead of time that I would have to share it with the overflow from Charles Barkley’s large form, I wouldn’t purchase the ticket.
Quite frankly, I agree that it is incorrect to be angry at Mr. Barkley (not to mention dangerous :D). But I would demand compensation from the airline and, if I don’t receive such compensation, deny them my business in the future.
Sua
Ms Robyn said, “but they’ve never treated Aaron as a nuisance. (I draw that comparison because there are those who argue that travelling next to a baby is worse than sitting next to an overweight person.)”
If you’re referring to my comment, I said a “screaming” baby is worse than sitting next to a heavy person. My son was a great flyer, too. No complaints from anyone. But some babies just hate it!
If you weren’t referring to my comment, then “nevermind.”
Well, obviously, the more mass you have, the more calories you’re going to burn, certeris paribus. That means that if I eat 12 cheese burgers a day, I will gain weight until I reach a certain mass that equals the same amount of calories to be burned whilst doing my everyday activities. From then on, my weight is stable. But I’m still obese. And I’m still eating wrong.
Next.
Wrong! Each passenger has a boarding slip. If you buy two seats, you get two. When the flight attendant does a seat count, you show her your second slip. The seat is yours.
Wrong! Take a look at Physical Activity Calorie Use Chart. You can see that as your weight increases, it takes more calories to do the same activity. So if calorie intake was high - and did not change - a smaller person would get larger until their calorie usage (for doing the same activities - like walking, breathing, etc.) matched their calorie intake. Then, they would stay the same weight.
Incorrect. Southwest will not place a person in a seat if you’ve purchased two tickets for the flight. You might need to have your ticket confirmation sheet with you to prove you paid for two tickets, though.
You and Herb Kelleher hashed all this out, did you?
If a person weighs 400 pounds and has maintained that weight for a year while eating around 3,500 calories a day, they won’t gain any more weight unless they literally lay in bed all the time. Their body has reached equilibrium. It’s a simple equation. If you add calories to your diet without increasing activity, you’ll gain weight. If you increase activity without adding calories, you’ll lose weight.
All of this is relative to the terminal limits the body places on itself. Weigh too much, or too little, and the body will shut down. Apart from that, the weight fluctuation based on calorie intake/calorie output is simple mathematics.
Allow me to quote from the Master: “If half the ingenuity the Teeming Millions waste on trying to avoid dieting and exercise could be devoted to something constructive, we’d cure cancer in a week. Let me start by laying down the two basic axioms of fat science. Axiom 1: There is no good way to lose weight that does not involve eating less or exercising more. Axiom 2: If the choice is between eating less and exercising more, choose the latter.”
I wasn’t talking about your remark. Aaron is mostly a great flyer, himself. But you’re right, some kids don’t like it, and some kids just get bored and misbehave accordingly, and thus widen the brush for kids who travel.
Robin
I suppose the “Blubber” reference later was a typo?
I’ll give you your original point. The woman next to you on the plane who raised the armrest without asking first was rude. As a large person I draw myself in as far as possible on a plane - knees together, elbows in my lap, & leave the armrest down.
Reasonable accomodation is the rule for every handicap except obesity. (And if you don’t think there’s a handicapped aspect to this, gain 100 pounds & try it out). If we end up back at the choice thing for this, I suggest handicapped placards for only biological handicaps. Christopher Reeve can schlep his way from the distant corner of the parking lot like me.
One poster is bringing her assistance dog on the plane - FREE! - no doubt to the inconvenience of somebody. What about the poor alergic person who never bargained to be next to an animal?
My point, again and again in this thread, is that somehow it’s rude and un-PC to make any comments or complaints about being next to a dog, or being next to somebody with a disability, but it’s fine to scream “Get your blubber off my leg!” to a fat person.
Thats the smartest thing Ive ever heard you say.
If you bothered to do any research yourself, you’d have found that for all animals the amount of energy required by the body to maintain their current weight (or BMR) increases with weight.
As people grow larger, their BMR increases. Eventually (unless they eat more and more) they will find an equilibrium point.
And no doubt as you’ll just cry cite again, here’s one for ya:
As for “having it both ways” how about someone who makes repeated claims that they know more than the medical establishment, yet can provide no cites or reasons.
You know, I’m a small guy, and on the rare occasions that I fly, I fit comfortably in the seats.
I assume that my airline tickets are cheaper than they would otherwise be, based on these smaller seats: they can sell more tickets, dividing the cost of each flight by more passengers, and still make a nice profit even with a lower ticket price.
But it’s not only small people that benefit from that. Large people get cheaper tickets as well, when there are more seats on a plane.
I’ve never had the personal space issues that people describe, but I know I’d be pretty uncomfortable if I were on a flight and, for whatever reason, the person sitting next to me were taking up part of the space that I felt I’d purchased.
Would I be angry at the airline? Not really: they’re saving me money by having smaller seats?
Would I be angry at the person taking up my space? A little: assuming they knew that airline seats were small, they purchased a ticket (cheap because of the small seats) and got on the plane knowing that they were going to take up part of my space. In other words, they’d take advantage of the smaller-seats discount we all get, but not actually use a smaller space, and instead they’d make me use a much smaller space.
In an ideal world, folks who for whatever reason want larger seats would communicate this desire to airlines. Of course they should pay more money for larger seats: those of us who take the smaller seats are paying a discount.
The folks who want larger seats would, ideally, refuse to fly on a plane that doesn’t offer larger seats. They’ll use a different airline, and the smaller-seat airline will suffer a profit loss.
The airlines will have to decide whether they want to continue with smaller seats or whether they’ll offer some larger, more expensive seats so that they can continue to get those flyers who want larger seats.
But I do not see why I should be punished for wanting the smaller-seat discount that’s currently offered to all coach flyers. I’m poor, and I like to travel; these smaller seats make it occasionally feasible for me to travel. Making all seats bigger might put the price of airfare out of my reach.
Daniel
Yes. Every plane I’ve ever flown on has featured at least one person saying this. Happens all the time. Why, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard this phrase. That’s why is such a touchstone of our society. At last count, the phrase has been incorporated into 132 films, 96 television shows, and was featured in the latest Avril Lavigne single.
It warms me to the very cockles that you can now see the simple truth of my formulation.
And what Coldfire said.
So do you also agree that the volitionally obese should pay for the extra space they take up on aeroplanes, or would that make you a bigot?
And don’t forget this snappy little ditty by MeanOldLady.
It’s got a nice beat but it’s hard to dance to.
Sauron, you really are evil, no ring required. I now have the mental image, complete with sound, of Avril Lavigne singing her latest hit “Get your blubber off my leg!” I don’t don’t whether to laugh or cry.