BTW, Vanilla, in case it’s not clear, I’d wholeheartedly support you in a campaign to get airlines to offer slightly wider seats with more legroom to passengers that are willing to pay for them. I’ve no objection at all to that. What I object to (and it’s not necessarily you who’s saying these things) is:
Suggesting that I ought to pay more money so that flying is more affordable for you (e.g., suggesting that all seats ought to be wider, or that the cost of extra-large seats should be spread equally amongst all flyers); and
Suggesting that somebody should FORCE airlines to offer the service you want (or that your employer wants to be available to you), instead of letting the market resolve the problem; and
Suggesting that since you can’t afford to purchase the service you need, it’s acceptable for you to use up part of the service I purchased.
The alternative is (and I will use small words to avoid confusion)…
…don’t fly.
It’s not a necessity and it’s not a right. If you want to do it, either buy two seats, or buy business, but get the fuck out of the seat that someone else paid for.
Actually, Vanilla Toast, I was referring to the “twinklemuffin” crack.
I think you’re the one missing the point, here. You are large, and sitting in an airline seat is uncomfortable for you. That is regrettable. However, you apparently make an attempt not to infringe on anyone else’s space when you fly.
It’s those who infringe on others’ space without a second thought that are being vilified here.
As I noted earlier, I’m not terribly small, and several months ago I had to share a two-seat row with an exceptionally large man on an exceptionally small and jam-packed airplane. He knew he was making me uncomfortable, but he apologized and did his dead-level best to stay in his seat. We were both sore after the flight ended, due to the various contortionist positions we attempted throughout the flight in an effort to acheive some small modicum of comfort. I bear him absolutely no ill-will; it was not his fault. The poorly designed plane was the culprit.
Had he plunked down and begun squishing away without a second thought for me, I would have been angry with him, as well as the airline.
Surely, by all that is sweet and holy, you can see the difference in the two scenarios. It’s when someone (either overtly or subtly) lays claim to my space without asking that I get annoyed.
By the way, did you notice, in your earlier fare example, that you could buy two coach seats for less than the cost of a single seat in the business section?
No, Daniel, you did not sum up what my point was. You summed up what you wanted my point to be, so you could argue with it. If you had gotten it, I would not have needed to ask if anyone did.
And MOL, I’m referring to the cattle-car form of transport as seen commonly in the poorer regions of India and China. If you’ve never had to share space with livestock and poultry and their owners, no, you have no idea of what I’m referring to. Private, reserved seats are… unheard of, for the most part. An unaffordable luxury.
It occurs to me: why does the extra wide/tall passenger need to take the extra space from another seat?
If you buy an aisle seat you can ‘use’ the aisle space to lean into/stretch legs into. Sure, you’ll have to move out of it during meal service and when someone moves down the aisle, but surely that adds up to a small percentage of the total flight time.
Yes, Sauron, I noticed that. Are you aware than many coach seats (referring to airline seats manufactured in the past 10 years) no longer swing up and out of the way?
Gary, you’re exactly the kind of ignorance that Clorox was made for. Your input on this board is both as rare and refreshing as a nice cup of hot sand in the Mojave.
Cheers to the rest of you, and I’ve spoken my piece. Ignorance was not accepted without dissent; I came, I fought, no one cared to change their mind.
Which part of my summary is inaccurate, and how so? Are you not purchasing a service that you know will be inadequate to your needs? Do you not know ahead of time that you’ll compensate by using part of the service I purchased? Do you not expect me to be angry at the airlines rather than at you?
If your point is that you purchase transportation, not a set amount of space, then indeed I didn’t sum up your point, because that point is too stupid to bother with (although other people have roundly proven it absurd).
But if I misstated your point, please be specific as to which part of the summary was a misstatement.
Yeah, but see, here’s the thing. If I get on a train in, say, a poor section of India, I’m expecting to be extremely limited in space. I would not be surprised to see farm animals on the train, because I know, to a certain extent, that these things occur on trains in the third world.
When I get on a Delta flight to from Birmingham to Pennsylvania, I’m not expecting to have to share my space with a large person for three hours. I’m expecting the same type of flight I normally get – and if I’m lucky, the flight isn’t full and I can claim two seats for myself anyway.
And on preview: I’ve never seen a coach seat “swing up and out of the way.” Do you mean the armrest? To my knowledge, that particular problem only exists with the new 777s. I’ve never been on a plane where the armrest wasn’t designed to swing up between the seats.
I’m curious as to how you feel you’re “fighting ignorance” here. You seem to be the one with the closed mind.
So, let me see if I am getting this right. Because people inChina and India have to share space with livestock I should expect to share my seat with an obese person? I am not sure I follow this. Is it related to the argument that I should finish my vegetables because people in Africa are hungry?
I bought Seat 38C on the aircraft. I did not buy seat 38B or 38D. Stay out of the space that I paid for and you have no problem. I will stay out of the spot that you purchased. Incidental contact is one thing, but if you take even 5% of my space, that is at least 4.9% too much.
KellyM, you should ask your doctor about this again, because it’s simply not true. The foetus will take whatever it needs from the mother, and if the nutrients aren’t in the mother’s diet, the foetus will take them from the mother’s body’s stores. For this reason pregnant women do need to make sure they have enough vitamins and minerals, especially calcium and folic acid (which I expect you know about anyway), but more to safeguard their own health than the baby’s.
However, there is no reason why a pregnant woman has to eat more calories. To support the foetus, the woman’s body is using more calories, true, which is the same as saying that if your partner were running two miles a day she’d be using more calories. She only has to eat more if she wants to replenish the calories lost, if she doesn’t want to lose weight. Underweight pregnant women therefore need to eat more. The rest of us don’t.
Check with your OBGYN, but if your partner feels uncomfortable eating those extra calories, there’s no reason she should have to.
Even after 7 pages, I still don’t get why some of the people who are genetically lucky enough to fit into airplane seats comfortably think that those who don’t should pay more. Is it just a case of a smug ‘life is unfair’ and ‘I’m alright so stuff off’?
‘You’re too big to fit into an airplane seat so buy two or don’t fly’, doesn’t seem like a valid arguement to me, whereas, ‘you’re too big to fit into an airplane seat, so lobby the airlines to make the average seat size larger’ is. Flying at cheaper prices becomes a right and privilege for a certain size only?
What if people without colour blindness only were allowed to fly at discount rates - should you have to pay more because you have it?
Poverty is something you can do something about (technically - not taking into consideration the poverty cycle trap etc), so flying is not an option. However, someone who doesn’t fit into a airplane seat is not necessarily able to do anything about it.
Yeah, after 7 pages you still don’t get it. I am not saying you should pay more. I am saying you should stay out of my freaking seat which I paid for. What is so difficult to understand? I paid for the seat. It is mine for the duration of the flight. If you are fat it is not my problem. Just like whether I am nearsighted or incontinent is not your problem. Or will you allow me to pee and vomit over you because I have a problem? Let me make it clear: it is your problem, not my problem.
As someone who really has no dog in this fight, I just want to ask why the simple concept of “please stay out of the area I purchased and I will do the same for you” seems to be so confusing to a few of you?
We both paid for tickets for our seats. I didn’t pay 70% of the cost for the 70% of the seat you are leaving me and you didn’t pay 130% of the cost for the 130% of the seat you are using.
Is it really so hard to understand that crowding me out of the seat I paid for is more or less stealing part of my purchase? That if you need more than the area allowed, then it is your responsibility to purchase a larger seat?
it ain’t rocket science people, why is it being turned into an argument involving third world countries and train riding goats?
I realize you don’t get it; I’ll try once again. YOU SHOULD PAY FOR THE SERVICE YOU NEED, FOR THE SERVICE YOU’LL USE.
How much the airline charges is between you and the airline. I don’t want you trying to raise the fare for me, for obvious reasons: I work at a nonprofit, earn nonprofit wages, and can rarely afford to fly (the trip I take in June will be the first time I’ve flown besides business flights in nearly six years, the first time I’ve flown to a vacation in nearly ten years). If you insist on raising the prices for everyone, you’ll price me and other poor people out of flying, which is an asshole thing to do.
Negotiate your own price with the airlines, but don’t purchase less service than you need and then expect to take some of my service to compensate.
Look, I have no beef with you about your size.
However, I don’t care if you’re Calista freaking Flockhart-if you’re in MY seat, I’m gonna fucking complain! Dammit!
Jeebus H. Christ! Talk about double standards. “I can do nothing about my own size and weight, but you are responsible for your own poverty.” I’ve been watching most of this debate with a sort of bemused detachment, believing that each side had some valid points. But this must take the cake for self-serving definitions.
Okay i get it - you don’t want someone spilling into the seat you paid for. This is not hard to understand. I don’t want somone spilling into my seat either (I’m not obese and don’t spill BTW).
However, I believe that those who do spill should have the right to pay the same price for their seat as those who don’t - we are talking about physical differences here. Just because airlines have decided what the average ass size is, shouldn’t mean that those with airline average ass sizes get to ride cheaper and those bigger than average ass sizes.
Size for many is the same as hair colour, eye colour, height etc. You have no control over it.
Relatively speaking, you have more control over your own poverty than you do what you look like.