Does anyone here really fit into one of those airline seats comfortably? I’ll admit that I’m overweight. I keep the armrest down if I have a neighbor specifically so I don’t nudge into their space. But the width of the seat doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the lack of leg room does.
There was one flight I was one two or three years ago where the airline had removed a couple of rows and made a big deal in their commercials about more leg room. It was heaven. I could actually straighten my legs out beneath the seat in front of me. Those few inches made me (and my neighbor, we both commented on it) deliriously happy.
Actually, I don’t really have a problem fitting in the seats. I usually have some space left over, and the leg room doesn’t bother me because I usually tuck my feet underneath myself, and I have short legs anyway.
I must have perfect flying genes. I even like the airline food!
Toss my voice in as well, with some apparently unique observations.
I’m roughly Coldfire’s build - an inch shorter, a couple kilos less (why did you mix English and metric units, anyway? I thought they only did that at NASA), but I have no problem in economy class seats for flights of any duration. I can’t stand straight up in a row due to the overhead compartment, and I can’t really stretch my legs out, and sitting naturally my knees tend to be a bit apart, but when I end up in an airline seat I curl up and hibernate, for lack of a better word.
The only problem I have on an airline is that I can’t fall asleep and I can’t stay awake, so I spend the entire time with my eyes closed on the verge of sleep with fleeting dreams going in and out of my mind mixed with conscious thoughts of how much I hate this semi-awake state.
You know, I’ve gone through all my life hating the fact that I’m only 5’7" on a good day, and 140 pounds soaking wet. But really, it’s all worth it whenever I get onto an airplane. And I still don’t have much excess room. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be for all you big tall people. Asking you to deal in addition with people who, through no fault of their own, take up more space than they’ve paid for is asking a bit too much, I have to admit.
Same situation happened to me. It was a 12 hr flight, I was at the Window and the guy who sat next to me was humungous. I’m not a big guy and he was squishing me. His gelatinous body was flowing over and under the armrest to pin me against the window. I started freaking out. “How could I possibly last 12 hrs seated next to this man?” He emanated such body heat that even in the cooled condition of the airplane I started sweating.
Fortunately a Flight Attendant noticed the situation and invited the gentleman to a seat with an empty one next to it. I don’t know what I would have done if the flight was full.
I am quite fat, on a flight, I can fit into one seat, and to make sure I do not overflow, I keep my arms crossed in front of me giving the other passenges the arm rests. I also do my best to get a window seat or failing that an asile seat, as I hate sitting between strangers. Once I was able to trade a center seat on a regular row for the window seat in the first row of the economy class which has vastly less leg room. Both me and the tal gentleman that moved were more comfortable. By all means, if you are sitting next to a fat person and don’t like it and there is another place to move, request to move. Not only will you possibly feel more comfortable, they might too. Just don’t say something like, “Hey, flight attendant, can you get me away from fatty?”
That said, since I am being considerate, I get taken advantage on as about a third of the time one of my skinny seat mate decides that I look comfy and uses me as a damned pillow. I do not like strangers touching me, and I like them drooling in my hair even less.
And while we are at it, can someone explain why an airline that is quick to charge a fat person double, won’t guarantee two adjacent seats ahead of time? I stopped using that airline because of that.
Please do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to complain to your airline. The chances of you being compensated thusly are far greater than by ranting here.
There is considerable difference between your arm touching your neighbor and ‘spilling’ over into the next seat. If you are spilling, then you are obese.
I’m a big guy. Broad shouldered and tall and well over 200 lbs. I’m uncomfortable in those seats to start out with but I can stay with the confines of them…
Spill over the armrest? Not this average sized person. And although they are built for one armrest hog, they can be shared easily enough if you limit your use to the elbow. As for the legs open posture… Except for one special occasion when I was asked to sit like that for a specific reason, my trouble is with the seat in front and not encroaching off to the side.
If you can’t fit, you have my sympathies, but that doesn’t entitle you to inch one of my space. Unless of course you arrive at the gate with a fist full of bills, and then we can talk about leasing an inch or two.
Yes, and not just once or twice. Since I am quite large, I don’t have that much room to move either. I guess I just look well upholstered so they treat me like furniature. I also don’t want to draw the ire of my skinnier seat mates because the situation on the surface looks like I would be the one impinging on them. The actual drool in my hair only happened once. I could not get to my hotel fast enough to take a shower. ICK.
Only once hace I requred a seat belt extender, and that seemed to be that the seat belt was a lot shorter than usual, not that I was fatter than usual as I had no trouble on the flight the day before. Still, I am very likely to be charged for two seats if the gate personnel just go by appearance.
I’m 6’4 (in my socks, end of the day) but fairly skinny. Thought I’d mention that a while back someone was trying to get airlines to give wider seats to wider people for free. All I could think of was “Are they going to give me two seats lengthwise?”
Actually, cinemas and busses give me the most trouble. On airplanes, sometimes I can wrangle the emergency exit, which does more for tall than what I imagine the isle seats do for wide.
Iee: Ack! That is a bit over the line. Is this while they’re awake, or asleep??? Could be worse though. “Hey, your earring’s really uncomfortable, could you take it off?”
I got stuck between two fat blokes on a flight once (thankfully only a short hop over to Copenhagen) - each of them was pressing against me to such extent that it was impossible to separate my hands far enough to use a knife and fork on my inflight meal. In the end I gave up in total frustration; the moment that my fork touched the tray, one of them glanced at my food and asked “are you going to eat that?..”
I still maintain that the ticket a person buys is the price of the transportation, not the chair. The airline is responsible for getting every ticketholder to his or her destination in whatevel level of comfort it has promised. If we say that size-20 people have to pay more because the airline has chosen to make the seats smaller, will they save money by making the chairs size-6 and charging everyone more?
At least half the population is overweight to some degree. But we’ve all got to travel. The airlines need to be sizing their seats for human butts, not merely for what’s cheapest for them.
Fisherqueen, I disagree completely. If they size the seats for bigger butts, then they can only fit fewer seats in a plane. Then Airlines have to put their prices up, making it more expensive for everyone. Why should other passengers be penalized to subsidize wider people?
People who think airlines should make bigger seats should be prepared to pay more for their tickets; the price of a ticket is based on a full plane with X amount of seats. If you reduce the number of seats b/c you made the seats bigger, the price for those seats, i.e., the tickets, will have to go up.
Which means that either everybody pays more to accomodate the few, or the few cough up for two seats (or first class) and the status quo continues.
Anybody who is too large to fit into an airplane seat has my sympathies. Seriously. I imagine it’s acutely uncomfortable. But it’s not my problem or my fault, so why should I have to cover the tab? If this theory were applied to other things, it becomes clear how ludicrous it is. When you look at clothing catalogs, the plus-sized clothing above a certain size costs more! More fabric = higher cost. The only way to eliminate this higher cost is to charge everybody more, and again, why should I pay more for fabric I don’t need, to accomodate someone else’s needs? This isn’t about discrimination, it’s about running a business! Common sense!
What someone weighs is their own business. I really don’t care. But when it comes down to either charging me more for bigger seats I don’t need, or losing half my seat even though I paid the same price as the person taking up that half, or requiring that someone who takes up twice as much space pay twice as much…I can’t see how it’s logical to do anything but the latter. Regardless of the political correctness of the matter, the fact is larger people require more space, and that space has to come from somewhere.
And it shouldn’t be my seat or my wallet. It should be theirs, since they are the ones taking up the space.
I pay for the space and I want it. Don’t care if its obesity spilling into my space, smell, attitude, noise from headphones, chatter … don’t want it.
Treat me like you like to be treated yourself. Have respect for my space and if you don’t - like when only buying one seat when you obviously need two - don’t expect me to accept the imposition; you’re just trying to get a cheap ride at the expense of my own paid-for space.
In other words, you know the deal airlines offer so, consequently, you’re cheating me, and don’t expect it to go unmentioned. Repeatedly.
The airline that was considering charging obese folks for 2 tickets was Southwest Airlines. Southwest has no assigned seating, just 1st come, 1st served. They also do not have 1st class. They have one size seat on every flight. Other airlines have different sections with different sized seats…at different prices. This counters your ‘tranportation/ not the chair’ argument.
The obese could fly another airline that has seats that will accomodate them (at a greater cost).
Truly, I find the idea that industry must change to accomodate a societal ill somewhat disturbing.
Because you should pay for what you use. You need more space then go business class and you’ll get more space. When you buy groceries you’ll pay more if you get more than I do. It is not a falt rate per person. When you buy cloth you pay depending on how much you get. When you buy a bigger car you pay more than for a smaller car. What gives you the idea that the airline is some kind of charity? I need eyeglasses and I pay for them out of my own pocket. If life were fair those who are lucky enough to not need eyeglasses would at least pay for those of us who do. But life ain’t fair and not only do I need to wear eyeglasses but I also have to pay for them. As we say in Spanish: not only am I fucked but I have to pay for the bed. That’s life. Welcome to the real world.
Except for one special occasion when I was asked to sit like that for a specific reason, my trouble is with the seat in front and not encroaching off to the side.