Is it unreasonable for airlines not to provide wider seats for obese passengers?

Nice idea in theory but one imagines that with evacuation times in mind they would be banned.

Quite a lot of people would be willing to pay proportionately more. At the moment for many destinations in Europe there’s essentially no alternative. We’re newly retired, planning on a lot of travel but the discomfort of planes is a major limiting factor - DH used to travel all over the world for work but now the idea of a flight of more than a couple of hours appalls him.

I was just thinking this! Gap in the market for portable seat dividers 😊

I do think they'd be a market for Premium Economy, ie wider seats & extra leg room but without the frills of business or 1st class.

So many people are taller and broader without considering the obesity issue.

Would they allow you to bring a cattle prod next time? Or place the large ones in one area so they all have to suffer like you did?
Trouble is bigger seats mean less capacity.

I’m not sure if any or many airlines have trialled ‘premium economy’ for short haul to assess demand? Obviously it’s not something they can do on a whim because they would need to alter their seating and I don’t think making changes on a plane is a trivial matter. But they might be able to get a good idea by using data from trains. We’ve been using trains more for or during holidays since retiring and the premium options seem to be well used. It’s easier for railways of course because they can extend the life of worn first class carriages by offering these larger seats as premium economy without all the frills, but it does give an idea about how many people are willing to pay for space. DH does our holiday travel and now always uses these options if possible. He also gets extra legroom seats on planes even though he’s average and I’m small. You shouldn’t find yourself next to anyone excessively obese in the exit rows because you need to be able to deal with the door and get out quick from those rows (idk what the crew do if someone who can’t do that has booked those seats, I’ve never seen that happen yet).
If premium economy seats existed on flights DH would be booking them for sure.

But I'm not speaking on premium economy. Although if it wasnt so expensive compared to economy it might sell better. I've even seen it priced higher than business

And I was thinking more linger haul than the short hops tbh.

There's not any proper biz class within Europe. Euro biz is just a blocked middle seat most of the time. And the majority of those flying in it are either connecting to long haul biz or in the old days " status chasing"

Perhaps if a person takes up two seats they should pay for two seats. I pay for my long legs to have room, and for my heavy case.

Of course it is.

I have no problem with fat people. I don't have a problem with anyone. Until it causes a significant problem for me.

If you are so fat it impinges on others - including risking the safety of others because you can fit in the seat, yes we should be able to a) talk about this b) take action to ensure others are not affected.

Culturally this is a British issue. I noticed on a trip to France at Easter there were posters in one city on the tram network about obesity and it being a 'national health emergency'. The photos used of individuals were not that big. I thought the campaign was appropriate and thought about how it was too taboo for us to be doing similar in the UK, not least because a third of the population here are bigger.

We absolutely should be saying no this isn't ok, rather than panicking saying that they can't help it, we are being so mean and cruel. Yes we can help it. That's the point. If you aren't prepared to make significant life style changes which plenty of other people do take seriously, it shouldn't be others problem.

Airlines have to consider the weight of passengers purely because of the laws of physics and cost of fuel. Even if you are 6'6", there is still a reasonable weight for an individual. Anyone above that, should be charged more and should be allocated appropriate seating for the safety and comfort of all.

I do wish we weren't so squeamish about something which needs to be addressed. Just get the fuck over it and yes, take action.

If you knew you might not be able to go on holiday or you might not be able to travel for work, that's a hell of a motivated to actually address the problem.

Well, I'm sure you'll happily volunteer to swap places with OP next time,and you can sit next to a person touching you for hours. :)

I would have asked the cabin crew to find you a seat with the full occupancy of the seat available, in front of said passenger. If no other seat was available I would suggest to the passenger they need to find a solution to avoid encroaching on your personal space, maybe they could have compensated you directly for taking a portion of your seat. Completely agree though that each person flying in economy should ensure they only take the space within the area of their own seat.

If you want to fly in comfort and without anyone in your personal space you are going to need to not go budget and to fly business

Stop winging

I hope he's sat next to you on the way home

Yes! This is something people so often don’t understand.

The costs of the operator/business are the costs of the consumer.

@TheLittleSunnyCat

Businesses under uk health and safety law

Before diving too deeply into that given the context of the thread it's worth being aware that some H&S functions in aviation are regulated by the CAA, not the UK HSE, and many rules that might apply at ground level may not apply...

the the main responsibility for actually addressing the problem seems to me to be with the operator rather than the individual

...and costs of addressing the problem will be born by the passenger(s).

This is such an interesting post.

Businesses under uk health and safety law have to conduct risk assessments and consider the impact and potential harm to their staff and others. So if being contorted into weird positions for hours on end through lack of space could create or aggravate a passengers, say, musculoskeletal problem, you’d have thought this would be documented and, including most importantly the controls and mitigations required to bring the risk down as low as reasonably practicable. I wonder what the airlines’ risk assessments say about this issue as it’s clearly a known one!

Health and safety practitioners need to know of near misses and usually encourage observations because they inform them of the areas where an actual case of harm could happen. So perhaps passengers affected should start to make any observations or feedback on lack of space, discomfort, etc to the airline. It’s the old thing too that if they don’t know formally ie in writing it is easier to claim not being aware.

I do also wonder if there could be anything in sales and consumer laws that buying a seat is buying 1 space and so it is a reasonable expectation for that sales contract if you like to be honoured.

These thing could end up with the stricter requirement for passengers to buy 2 seats or whatever, but the main responsibility for actually addressing the problem seems to me to be with the operator rather than the individual.

Yes but the point is that if the demand were there the premium economy cabins would already be bigger and something like that would also exist on shorter flights. The idea of selling space is not a new one. Airlines would love to be able to sell more business and premium seats and it’s extremely difficult to make money from larger seats on the shorter services. Have you looked at business class cabins within Europe?

The cost on flights does not come from food & luggage. The vast majority of your economy ticket (which is what we are talking about here) is fuel and taxes and that doesn’t change with the number of people. Baggage and seat selections are revenue generators - it was key in the low cost carrier model and traditional airlines were forced to follow to keep their ticket price low enough to be competitive. Less passengers means less of this revenue. The revenue generated by these ancillary items is far greater than the cost savings of less passengers.

The additional cost to the passenger for the larger seats would not need to simply buy the space by redistributing the base ticket costs but also cover the luggage and seat selections associated with each ticket (and other per passenger revenue generators which are kept out of the ticket price).

This wouldn”t be an issue if enough economy passengers were willing to pay more for their ticket for comfort and convenience but look at how some people try and squeeze their clothes into a bag small enough to avoid the checked luggage cost and every year there are contentious threads on here about whether it’s worth paying for seats.

Of course some people would pay more (and this determines the various cabin sizes on long haul planes). But there are tipping points all over the place and just because it seems sensible that a significant number of economy passengers would willingly pay 50% more for a larger seat for themselves doesn’t make it happen.

It’s an interesting discussion because on a macro level the industry depends on the number of people flying. Airports are massively invested in the numbers of people passing through for obvious economic reasons. It is much more economic to have more people on planes. The majority of people are travelling economy and if planes start carrying less people it disrupts these economics. Airline slots would become more expensive to generate the same revenue or airports would need to provide greater plane capacity which would come at an infrastructure cost which would be passed onto airlines and therefore consumers.

Airlines have whole departments working on revenue and economics.

It is not up to the airline to provide bigger seats, it is up to the passenger to purchase more space.

We're lucky we're in Europe and its rare to see someone huge huge lol

Their package holiday booking doesn’t allow additional seats to be booked on the flight, it should. Seat sizes should be quoted and passengers able to book an additional seat if they can’t fit within their allocated seat. It should warn that if you can’t fit into a single seat, but choose to only book one, you may be removed from the flight.

The seats are small, if a larger persons is travelling with a friend willing to share their space with them all good. Expecting a stranger to be squashed and share their space isn’t reasonable.
Nothing will change unless people complain though.
This isn’t about fat shaming,it’s about not expecting a stranger to be uncomfortable so that you’re not.
My son is 6ft 6, he has to pay more for additional leg room - that’s they way it is.

Airlines should provide seat measurements and make it clear that if over a certain width you are expected to buy two seats and won't be allowed to board otherwise. They can have a barrier of the appropriate size to pass through to check this as the wider people will show their double seating ticket to get through.

Im interested in why some posters are emphasising that 'its not someones fault if they're obese' and/or 'it may be a disability'

Surely that is irrelevant when discussing the impact on the other passenger

It may be relevant in how the airline company manage the obese persons needs, but its not relevant in trying to dismiss the other passenger (the next door passenger)'s needs or pain and discomfort.

Its a simple business equation, if someone pays for a full seat, they expect to be able to use the whole seat.

Take a couple of wooden boards with you, shove them down the gap in the seats and voilà! No more spilling into your seat area.

i absolutely hate that non-consensual touching from strangers is apparently acceptable if they’re just too big for their seat. And for some reason it’s always the slim person that must sit awkwardly! They never lean to move themselves!

It’s literally like torture. I’m a fairly average sized woman 5ft 8 with a bmi of 23 - I can’t STAND how small planes are now. It seems to get worst. It’s seriously not responsible of airlines!

Exactly, tall people tat need extra leg room need to pay extra for leg room. For example my 6ft 2 son with a 35inch leg physically cannot get his legs into a normal leg room without sitting sideways so opts to pre book seat with extra space with the extra cost.

I was next to a man in the middle who had a very large tummy and I felt for him, as he had to keep his arms in a very restricted position during the whole flight.