Cheetah7

If a large person sat next to you on a plane and not only filled their seat but took over a large portion of yours, would you be happy to lift up your arm rest to allow them to do that?

I saw on the news this morning something about airlines wanting to charge larger passengers that took up extra seats, more money for their airfare. I suppose we could argue should skinny people pay less, but in my opinion when you buy one seat, that is what you get and you should never expect someone to lift up the arm rest to allow their bodyweight to take up space you have paid for thus affecting your comfort.

Take up two seats, pay for two seats. Would you be happy to allow someone to take up your space on a flight?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...an-flight.html

spartacus

When you say large, do you mean tall?

Centurion

They should be obliged to pay for an additional seat if they are clearly so morbidly obese they are going to impact on other passengers. Or consider flying cargo.

Centurion

I think she means a huge fattie. There - I said it. I give it 10 posts before thyroid is mentioned.

Cheetah7

I was in a cafe the other day and this huge woman came out with her friend and she had ordered two BLTs, fries and onion rings, I thought they were going to share but she ate the entire lot to herself - never have I seen a human being put away quite so much food in my life.

I must say I would resent having to put up my armrest on a plane to accommodate someones extra weight.

Kim67

If you can't fit in one seat then I guess you should have to pay for another one. My brother and sister in law are both large, could fit in a plane seat but would probably be uncomfortable so they always go business class. Tough one, but I'm squished enough when flying most of the time with no legroom and a couple of kids hanging off me without having someone that I don't know's flesh touching me - ewww.

xzibit

Personally, I think that airfares should be charged on weight, and there should be a set 130kg limit for passenger and luggage, and if you're over that then you pay a premium.

I don't see why when I'm moving to Australia that I can't go over my 25kg allowance, but the guy behind me in the queue weighs in at about 100kg more than me!!

If someone weighs 120kg, then they should be allowed 10kg free luggage allowance, and me, weighing in at 75kg, should be allowed 55kg free allowance. Also, people that cannot fit into an economy seat without their 'handles' flowing over the armrests should have to pay for business or first.

All in my humble opinion of course!!

DadAgain

Theres 2 perfectly valid reasons why it might be considered ok to ask passengers to pay more:

1) They take up more room (i.e. are so fat noone can sit comfortably next to them) thus either tarnmishing the airlines reputation as a potential repeat customer has a forever negative view of the airline thanks to their unfortunate seating allocation - or denying the airline a chance to charge anything as they have to leave the seat empty.

-or- (and this is more contraversial)

2) They are too heavy - and therefore use more jetfuel making the flight more expensive to run.

I'm all in in favour of issuing a weight limit - say a generous 120kg. Thats more than enough for a reasonably full body shaped male of 6'2" complete with 20kg of luggage. If YOU weigh more than you ought to, then you'd have to pack less to stay under the limit. If you're a slight 5'0" skin and bones waif-like female you could pack a bunch of suitcases and still be comfortably under the weight limit - why not you've paid just as much as the fatty for your proportion of the fuel!

ETA: Obviously I type too slowly! sorry xzbit - clearly the same idea!!!

Centurion

I must admit I simply wouldn't. I wouldn't be that nice about it either. If they are so rude as to knowingly get on a plane and inflict rolls of fat over me then I would just have to look them in the eye ask them if they were taking the piss or what.

And then beg they don't eat me.

GarryP

Forget fatties, I think that not only should toddlers not go for free, they should be charged more than an adult ticket.

While a fatty might annoy one person, a screaming kid will annoy dozens.

Oh, and although increased weight might mean a slightly increased fuel load, what really hits the financials is empty seats. Should you be charged more if your flight is half full?

Kooky.

Am I too early? As a slightly fat person with a thyroid problem who spent all of Tuesday suffering from a very fat person sitting behind me on the plane, and a rather fat person sitting in front of me on the plane, with the consequence that the back of my seat was battered all night long (he seemed to be sleeping, but was moving a lot) and the seat in front was reclined in my face all night long, and he also moved a lot, to the extent that I had to hold onto my glass of water and also had to recline myself in order to see the TV screen, and found it almost impossible to sleep due to these two inconsiderate bastards...yes I say, for the first time in many many flights I decided, make them buy a business class seat.

LouiseR

But what about well behaved toddlers and babies? Yes, there are some.

My son was 7 months old when we fly 21 hours and he was good as gold, not so much as a whimper from him and we didn't even knock him out with Calpol or Phernegan So in my case, would I be refunded a proportion of my screaming child tax upon landing?

And toddlers don't go for free, if they have a seat (over 2's it's compulsory they do) then they pay the same as an adult minus the tax.

Centurion

Only in adverts. Best ban them anyway and put them on a plane with the fatties just in case.

jad n rich

They need some guideline where people who obviously cant fit into an economy seat must buy two. Safety reasons for a start, how the heck can you get out your seat in an emergency if the person next to you is wedged into a seat half their size

Last time on SA in economy they had a vast guy ( the 300 lb type ) wedged into the back row aisle seat, some tiny woman was mid row beside him and he was half in her seat and half in the aisle, ridiculous.

On the same flight I escaped him but got some pissed guy who decided my shoulder was a good place for his head while he slept.

Now as for kids, there should be one economy cabin section just for people with them, mine are teens now and when they were younger we flew heaps, they were not allowed to scream and kick people at home so they were not allowed to do that on a plane either, so I dont understand the bratty behaviour you get on planes nearly always now.

Tall people, you can usually buy exit row seats once over aged 15 so maybe thats the solution there.

Cheetah7

We have someone at work who is larger than life and their nickname is pie muncher, one of the lads at work told me that every single morning that he sees this person, she is eating pies, she may graduate to people.