I have an interesting proposition: I think they should do passenger matching and pair up the needs of their larger clients with those who would fit comfortably beside them. See if they can’t work out a deal wherein a larger passenger is issued a seat next to someone who can afford to give up some space, and have them work out the cost of the tickets to match. I give up a little more of my seat, I get a little discount on my ticket. The person who needs a little more room pays a little more, but unless they’re using the entirety of both seats there’s no need to pay for two tickets. Sounds like a plan, non?
Perhaps they should have pews instead of seats (with belt and armrest attachments that can be released and slid along) - passengers could buy seating by the inch (not being permitted to buy a length less than the width of their own body, with a computer calculating the best way to fit the various bought lengths together.
Dumb idea.
Wow, JETGIRL, the best part about your idea is that it’s, like, not even a hassle at all. I like this idea of matching up every single passenger on the plane according to weight. Anyway, Fisher, your contention that we pay for the trans and not the seat is insane. Great, by that contention I should be able to buy one ticket and take up the whole damn plane and fly alone. Umm, not gonna happen. More realistically speaking, imagine I decided I wanted a whole row to myself so I could pull up the arm rests, curl up with a blanket and comfortably sleep on a coach flight, for a change. You think the airlines is going to charge me for one seat since I’m only one person taking one flight? Pfft, I wish. So then if someone just so happens to spill into two different seats, why pay for one? The rules are the rules. You’re in two seats? Good, now pay for 'em and get your blubber off my leg.
Or they could have a special government-sponsored airline - Fat Air perhaps - that only caters to those over a specified body fat index level. Seats would be wider but only one small luggage each.
Ridiculous.
Incidentally, “not only am I fucked but I also have to pay for the bed” is right up there with “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing” in my opinion. Marvellous.
pan
I’m 5’6 and weigh about 68 kilos and I don’t find airplane seats comfortable. I’m glad I can fall asleep in almost any circumstance.
Heh. Because I remembered that 1.86 meters roughly equals 6’2", but I couldn’t be arsed to convert 100 kilograms to lb’s. 
230 or something?
Mangetout, your idea is nice in theory. But it would require a “How wide is your ass?”-dropdown box on most ticket websites, which people would not use truthfully to get a better rate. OR, an Ass-O-Meter at the check-in booth, which would be hilarious for some, but insulting to others. I don’t see it happening. Either the airlines have to force people to buy two seats if they need them (or force them to buy business class), or make sure their configuration includes enough chairs to accomodate the obese, who as others said, indeed need to travel as well. Those chairs would cost slightly more, as they take up more space.
Yeah, but then you get woken up by me prodding you in the arm and calling you Shorty McSmallFry
It’s not fair that <insert preferred euphemism here> people have to buy bigger coffins.
Or rather, it’s not fair on their surviving relatives, who, after all, didn’t get to eat all those pies.
When resurrected bring pie.
:)
Pffft. I think we can just put you in the overhead bin and use your space to stretch out.
SO lets just tax the fatties more too, since they produce more garbage and waste, and heck their cars are making grooves in the road and their fat kids are wearing out the school bus seats, and their bodies absorb more of the suns energy thereby shading out the skinny’s making them pale and sickly.
Oh where is randy newman fat people gotta go
I’m pretty small (5’1", 100 lbs) so I don’t have as much trouble with anyone pouring over into my seat to the point they’re touching me. But here’s my plan. Why not have a “super sized” section on the plane, in coach? The last few rows would have seats that are somewhat bigger, but not fully twice the size of a regular seat (which few people would actually need). They would pay slightly more, and everyone would be happy. You would know in advance how big a “super sizer” would be and order your seat accordingly. So say, if a regular seat cost $150, the super sizer would cost maybe $175 or something (definitely less than business class). Just a thought.
Kalhoun, a lot of airlines do that already - for example BA’s World Traveller Plus seats.
You’d probably run into the situation like in parking lots, where people keep parking big SUVs/trucks/etc. in “Compact” spots.
My husband is rather tall and broad-shouldered, so he has trouble with leg room and his shoulders/arms going outside his seat space. Whenever possible, we try for bulkhead seats, and for two-across seating so that I’m the only one who ends up snuggling up to him.
If we ever came upon an airline where he had serious difficulty fitting into one of their coach seats, we’d either fly an upgraded class in the future or not fly with that airline at all.
Two things: Not everyone who actually needs those seats would be willing to pay more for them, and some who need those seats would be insulted by the implication and refuse to buy them.
I’ve related this before, but by God I’m vain enough to think you’ll want to hear it again: Last fall I had to fly from Harrisburg, Pa. to Birmingham, Al. The flight I was supposed to take got delayed, so by the time we climbed aboard the plane we had two flights’ worth of passengers. The plane was completely full. Worse, it was a puddle-jumper type of plane, designed for about 80 passengers. This was my first experience in plane that size.
I’m around 6’1", 210 pounds, fairly broad-shouldered. I had a window seat. I was barely able to get into it. The overhead bin was literally two inches above my head while I was seated. My knees were jammed into the seatback ahead of me, and I had to hunch my shoulders to fit into my seat.
Then my seatmate arrived. About two inches taller than me, and probably 80 to 100 pounds heavier. He apologized profusely, but there was simply no way for him to avoid spilling over the edges of his seat. I felt badly for him – it wasn’t his fault that the airliner was designed for Lilliputians. I rode with my torso twisted to the right the entire flight. My right arm and shoulder were numb from being jammed into the windowframe. He had to slump forward the entire flight to avoid jamming the top of his head into the overhead bin.
I have never seen a plane that poorly designed in my life.
Sauron, sounds like a Dash-8 from that description. However, there’s nothing as bad as a BAe 146, AKA the Avro RJ 100. Look at how the fuselage curves around the window seats. These planes are hell. They’re also noisy, sensitive to wind, and they tend to break down a lot.
Ugh.
American Airlines, if it stays in business - management seems to be doing its best to ensure that won’t happen - is the one that recently removed rows of seats. It does make a difference on my 6’2" frame.
And yes, Fisher, the economics of mass travel - in any medium - are that you get a certain amount of space, not some hypothetical “transportation.” If you want more space, pay up and shut up, and not necessarily in that order…
All these stories remind me of a flight from Chicago to Frankfurt I was on a couple of years ago.
I saw a VERY large woman take a window seat on a three seat row. I went on about my stuff, and a while later another VERY large woman (who I took to be the sister of the first one) was sitting in the aisle seat. The women seemed to be almost shoulder to shoulder in the middle.
Fast forward eight hours to the landing in Frankfurt. Fat woman number two (from the aisle seat) heaves herself up, nearly uprooting the seat in front of her which she used to pull against in getting up, and steps into the aisle and starts looking for her stuff. This little bitty guy I’d not even seen during the flight crawls out of the middle seat and stretches himself to his full 5’ 3" and moves on to get out of the plane. The poor guy was trapped in between those two behemoths for eight hours. I know he had to have been, because I was awake the whole time and not once di the woman in the aisle seat get up.
I’m 5’6" and 110 lbs, and I think this is sheer genius. Who wants to subsidise my trip to Australia?
I’m fat - VERY fat. When I fly, I take along my skinny husband who, believe it or not, actually likes to cuddle with me the entire flight. If I only take up part of his seat and he doesn’t impact anyone else, there’s no problem. I try to be the first on and the last off, so that I don’t slow anyone down. I try to be considerate and not let my fat ooze onto the poor and unsuspecting. Lord knows the last thing I want to do is to have more people treat me as if I’m contagious.
I think a solution would be scales. You, and your luggage, get on the scales. Normal ticket is, say, $100 for Person + bags weighing 150 to 300 lbs. Light ticket, weighing under 50-150, is $75. Bantaam weight (kids) would be $50. Heavy ticket, 300-400 lbs, $150. And the super heavy weight, my personal favorite, over 400 lbs, pay $200. Easy. simple. to the point.
Weigh more - pay more. Spelled out in certain terms so that if extra fuel is needed, it’s payed for. And you wouldn’t have the problem with overcrowding and treating people like cattle. Once a plane reached it’s weight limit, it’s full. Don’t base income on the number of butts in seat - Base it on the amount of weight on the plane. It would be safer for everyone involved.