Your fat is spilling into my seat

The BBQ Pit
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I’m not saying you shouldn’t fly. But as a short term answer, yes, if you’re too big to fit in the seat next to me, you ought to have bought either two seats, or a seat in business or first. That’s not because I hate you, but because you’re covering part of my seat, for which I -just another paying customer like you- plunked down my hard-earned Euros. It’s not yours, it’s mine. Period.

Well, that would be the long term answer. Go right ahead and lobby: I don’t mind one bit. I’m not that inconvenienced that I’d invest energy into it myself, but if airlines make the seats 20% bigger for an additional 20% in ticket price, I’m a happy man.

Can’t you see that both answers apply? Sure, coach seats are too small for a significant part of the population. We can debate about whether the options already available (business and first, bying two seats) are good enough, or whether something needs to be done about coach seats to begin with, increasing the price for all coach travellers. All that is fine. But in the short term, if you’re sitting next to me and you’re using 25% of my space, you owe me 25% of my ticket price. Sorry, just the way it is. Unfortunately, no one ever compensated me for involuntarily donating part of my seat to my neighbour, whereas that neighbour DID get additional space at no charge. Did you ever think about it in those terms?

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Listen, you pompous gimp, the reason people aren’t agreeing with you is that you’re wrong. You’ve had every one of your ideas rebutted on grounds of economics, logic or principle but still you whine on about what you think is acceptable practice or pricing. Then you accuse others of ignorance and not changing their minds? Get over yourself.

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Let me the first to call bullshit. You have some control over your girth. You (not you personally, but the generic you meaning ‘all of us’) can lose weight and become slimmer. And you DID change your weight to get that heavy in the first place. It didn’t happen by accident, and doesn’t stay that way by accident.

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It’s true. We do not accept your ignorance. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Christ, what a pompous, arrogant twit.

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You still don’t get it. Let me explain: I. Don’t. Care. i don’t care if it is your fault or not. I paid for my seat and I want what i paid for. If you have special needs then get what you need. If I have no control over my sphincters and pee and vomit and shit would you agree to fly seated next to me? It’s not my fault that I have no control.

I am sorry you have special needs but it is not my business to cater to your special needs. I also have special needs and i do not see you helping me deal with them. But if you like you can send me $15 which I will put towards my next pair of eyeglasses. It’s only fair.

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And I’m a sad man, because I can barely afford to fly as is. Lobbying the airlines for wider seats is, of course, an ethical response to his problem, but if he succeeds, he inconveniences me. I’d much prefer that people who want wide seats lobby airlines to include SOME wide seats, but leave some teeny tiny cheapo seats for those of us who can fit in them and who can’t afford to pay any more for plane tickets.

Daniel

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Good point, Daniel. Which would result in a solution à la British Airways, who have a World Traveller Plus class. Slightly bigger, slightly more legroom, slightly more expensive.

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United also has an “Economy-plus” class, with more legroom. I look at it longingly on my way to the back of the plane. :slight_smile:

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Sorry, didn’t mean to step on your turf like that. Please, twitter on.

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OK, a little check:

For a LHR-JFK Round Trip on the 13/20 May, the price for an economy class ticket is currently GBP 414.
The premier economy ticket costs GBP 898.

That’s just stupid. There’s no way those seats are twice the size of a regular economy class chair.

Business: GBP 1978
First: GBP 3257
Concorde: GBP 4115, but that’s just a one-way ticket. :smiley:

Clearly, BA have the seats to accomodate those who don’t fit in a regular seat, but they have’n’t priced them accordingly. No wonder I see so many of these “World Traveller Plus” seats empty on their planes. Hmmm.

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Ack. Scratch all of that.

The lowest fair for an economy round trip is GBP 134 ex tax.
The lowest fair for economy plus is GBP 1054 ex tax.

For the dates and airports mentioned above. Huh.

Change the dates to November.

Economy: same price, GBP 134 ex tax.
Economy plus: GBP 434 ex tax.

So, booking it advance will get you a bigger seat for a somewhat reasonable price, but your might as well buy a whole fucking row-of-three in “normal” economy, because that’s cheaper.

I’m baffled.

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Baffling as it may be, you’ve still demonstrated that a return from London to New York, two seats can be had for £268. I hardly see that as a huge price deterrent preventing large people from flying.

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Honest Question:

Hypothetically, if a person needed a large piece of equipment to survive (say, oh, an Iron Lung or a not-so-small dialysis machine or something along that line) and they needed to fly somewhere, would there be objections if the airline made them purchase an additional 2 seats as their equipment takes up the row? That person physically is not able to only take up one seat. We are not talking about a wheelchair that can be moved away from the person.

Or, since it is not physically “their body” does that make a difference?

Personally, I feel that they should have to pay for an entire row or the seats space they take up.

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I do too, bernse. However, I’d like to think that a caring society would make sure that people in a position like that would be compensated by either their insurance or the state, for the extra costs they face. Pay for one seat yourself, insurance covers the other two.

And no, I don’t think the same reasoning automatically applies to overweight people.

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That is a rather… interesting statement.

Because thats economics. You take more you pay more. Suck it up and deal with it. No one ever said life was fair; but in this case it is. Maybe it isn’t “fair” that your large size doesn’t always help you. That isn’t my problem.

Funny thing is - I am almost perfectly average in size. Internationally I probably a bit big. I have no trouble at all, even in really tiny 20-person planes.

Majority, I should think. In any event, your real problem is that you refuse to pay for what you buy. Too bad. Don’t expect sympathy. Business is not democracy. Its about making money. Airlines usually do that, and they are not at all interested in your comfort except as to how it affects their business. If you can’t fly comfortably, either deal with it because its worth it to you or don’t fly.

You are the one using more resources. Resources = scarce resources. You want more you pay more. Their is absolutely nothing in the world that ever gave you the right to have a comfortable airline seat. You get what you pay for. You seem to still have the delusion that the airline’s business is elling you transport. That is not true at all. The airline sells you a seat. Why? because that is what they did, in fact, sell you. They sold you exactly what they said they sold you. What they sold you is defined by what they say they are selling and are, in fact, selling. Capiche?

I have covered this. No one guarrenteed you anything.

And if you want to be comfortable, you are going to have to buy a big car… because YOU ARE BIG. I find your last sentance to be illogical.

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I’m obese. 100 lbs or more over my best body weight; I think that’s morbidly obese. It sucks, mightily, but I’m working on solving that problem.

Luckily, I don’t spill over on airplanes. I’m 250 lbs, 53-48-53 (whee, perfect hourglass figure, now if only I was measuring a little less time :D) and let me tell you, on the plane I take to Dallas in two weeks, I am going to be insanely uncomfortable.

It takes effort not to spill. Heck, if I had my druthers, I would flip up that armrest and take up two seats…kick back and relax, stretch my everlovin’ arms, the whole drill. Sometimes I flip up the armrest as soon as I get into the seat in the desperate hope that the plane will be underbooked.

But as soon as someone starts coming into my aisle, my posture changes. I flip the armrest down and get into my space-saving position – arms hugged close to myself, body pressed as close to the fuselage as possible. I can’t do my favorite thing on an airplane – just reading, pure and simple – because I haven’t the room. All my body is squeezed into the space I’ve paid for. I’m in incredible discomfort, but I don’t like being touched by strangers either.

So MOL – I feel for ya, darlin’.

But.

You’re not going to be able to require that people sit in bigger seats. At least, not you personally, unless you run an airline. If a company I flew with frequently asked me my weight or measurements when I bought a ticket, I would hang up the phone and fly with another company.

I know how it is to get crowded out of your seat by someone else, without even a murmured apology or even a worried glance. (Then again, I also remember one flight where a large man, upon taking the middle seat, looked at my fourteen-year-old-and-much-smaller self worriedly and offered to sit on the aisle to give both of us more space.) Especially when said person is hot, sweaty, unwashed, icky, etc. That’s unpleasant, and I don’t wish it on anyone.

But you’re going to have to deal with it. I’m glad that you didn’t shout at the woman who sat next to you, I’m glad that you didn’t harangue the check-in staff. You’re within your rights to complain to the company (hey, maybe you’ll get a free ticket!), and it’s your own business whether you do so.

And remember that any obese individual has to live with themselves every day of their life. They have to squeeze themselves in and out of their car, their favorite chair, the booth at the restaurant. They have to deal with the fact that walking too far tires them out, that a jog around their block douses them in sweat, that they cannot look in the mirror without feeling physically ill.

If that makes you feel sad, cool. If not, you can at least take a little joy in the fact that, while you’re going to be uncomfortable for a few hours, they’re going to be uncomfortable for years.

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So I guess you still haven’t spoken your peace?

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Did *Vanilla Toast change his screen name to Zenham?

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And obviously my coding skills suck today.