To dread flying because of my size?

[annauk1]

I am going on holiday in a few days. I should be really happy but the flight is really making me not want to go.

I flew last year and needed a belt extension which was fine, wasn't much of a problem, but the thing that petrifies me most is that DP and I won't be able to sit together and if I end up sitting next to a nasty person who is ' a fat-phobe' and huffs and puffs at me the whole 3 hours for taking up more than my (tiny) seat space. I am flying with Monarch who are notorius for their tiny seats. I am a size 26 btw.

OP, after reading this thread, I think I now have an insight into your world and to people's shortsighted reactions to size. I sympathise. Hope you have a lovely holiday

Angry; yes, being crushed over a long flight can have serious medical consequences. This woman suffered a blood clot in her chest along with other injuries from the obese woman next to and on top of her. www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=4339

I'd like airlines to provide bigger seats for people that needed them, but would those passengers be happier to pay more money?
If you have a block of 4 seats and a block with wider seats that are in pairs, would passengers in the latter be prepared to pay twice as much?
Because that is what would happen, flights are cheap because they pack in as many passengers as possible.

I am neither nasty nor fat-phobic. I have been at various times of my life a dress size 10 and a dress size 22. However I would "huff and puff" if I boarded an aircraft, found my seat and realised that there was half a seat available due to the size of the person in the adjacent one. I would also ask to be moved. I don't think it's fair to blame the imaginary pissed-off passenger for not wanting to be squashed next to you for 3h!

The easiest solution as everyone has said is to prebook your seats so that you are sitting next to your DP, who will presumably not mind sharing his personal space with you.

Failing that, pay for a second seat or an upgrade to a class with enough seating.

Oh come on there was one or two actually horrible comments about being 'In the territory of hugeness'. The rest of the posters on this thread quite rightly objected to the OPs rather nasty assertion that anyone who is annoyed at having a seat that they have paid for taken up by someone who is overweight is 'fat phobic'. Why all the pearl clutching?

Sorry, but am also at lying's image of the human Tetris puzzle and the man fitting perfectly on your boobs (although I am sure it wasn't great at the time!).

I think a solution might be if we all carry a couple of 4 by 4 pieces of rigid plastic and slot them between the seats.

Seriously I cannot believe that we are expected to pay for something then suffer hours of hell because we cannot access what we have paid for.

I may be speaking out of turn here OP but why can you not sit with your partner? I am sure you can, I have never travelled and not been able to sit with my husband and children. I have never paid an extortionate price for the privilege.

Like it or not you are being unreasonable to expect others to suffer because of your size.
You have three options
A. Reduce your size
B. pay for extra seats
C. Don't travel in restricted spaces.

Sorry the other option is to do as you are doing and suffer the complaints of your fellow travellers.

www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/9991285/Airbus-plans-extra-wide-seats-for-fat-passengers.html

I once propped my magazine up on my side of the armrest to try to stop someone overweight from spilling into my seat and touching me. I simply can't bear being touched by strangers, especially not for a long flight. She had a go at me about it and I ended up in tears sat next to her touching me for hours.

I still don't know who was right or wrong in that situation. I really feel for anyone who can't fit into those seats but being touched by a stranger is very triggering for some of us for obvious reasons. I hope you find a solution OP and have a good holiday.

What are the odds this will be on the Wright Stuff this morning?

Monarch have no leg room...we are all 6 feet tall (well dh is 5 feet 10) so always book the front seats for that reason.

"It doesn't matter whether you are large, broad shouldered due to body building, have a child that won't stop pulling someone's hair, want to tuck your legs under you, read a large newspaper, or you're a man who has such large bollocks that need airing throughout the flight and you must sit with your legs wide apart, then you pay for the space you actually need and make sure that you don't encroach on other people's space."

That's what OH does. He is tall with long legs and always pays extra to get an extra legroom seat.

I once sat next to a man who sat with his legs wide open on a 12 hour flight back from Hong Kong. I was so uncomfortable and couldn't move. When he got off in Amsterdam the girl sat on the other side of him started talking to me and she had also had the same problem.

Let's face it airline seats just aren't comfortable unless you are a child or very petite.

What a vicious thread. I'm a tiny person but fwiw I'd happily sit next to the op. If you're travelling on the cheap then don't expect the perfect ride , most likely your personal space is going to be encroached . My parents travel business and on select airlines to guarantee a comfortable journey. I've travelled next to larger people, teens shrieking throughout a night flight, a tipsy vocal person who couldn't stop talking at the top of his voice, fidgety toddlers, screaming babies, ut's all good. Why do we find it so hard to lack empathy and be tolerant? I'm not surprised the op has perhaps confused fat phobia with genuine discomfort since there seems to be much of it in this thread, she has probably encountered so much of it in real life.

I think that if you know that you won't fit into a seat then you need to pay for extra room. The solution is for you and your DP to book 3 seats, it will cost more but you will be comfortable and not inconveniencing others. I want my own space, as does everyone, and I don't want someone taking up some of my room.

It isn't a vicious thread.Maybe if you are a tiny person you have room to give over part of your seat. I am not tiny, I am taller than average for a woman. I think it unfair to say that if you want a comfortable flight you have to pay out for business class and yet a person who won't fit in a seat can take part of someone else's for free! I agree that you expect no frills if flying cheap but you do expect your seat to be just that- your seat.

If you know one seat is too small you need to pay for 2. If anyone was asked in advance, 'I know you have paid full price for your ticket but do you mind giving up part because the person in the next seat needs it?' They would refuse and suggest that the person who needed it paid for it and they would like a proper seat to themselves!

I'm wondering what the OP's expectations of the potential replies were when she posted...

Some people get sick on flights. I am one such person - bit sad really because I fly on average every two weeks. One of the things that makes me throw up is turbulence, another is just the normal process of landing, but the third thing that's guaranteed to make me Chuck is being squashed and squeezed. I'm v small and I don't take up my full room on an airline seat so a little bit of encroachment is ok but if the person next to me is touching me - they will be puked on. Not because I'm a fat phobe (horrible vile term which says more about the OP than anything else she posted) but because I'm a bad flyer. I know I'm not the only one (at least, flight crew have told me it happens to other people too). There are other reasons apart from fairness and natural justice why people might not want to be squished and squashed too - medical and psychological one. OP YABVVVU

I don't think making bigger seats is the way forward at all..... Where would it end? Wider doorways,larger hospital beds,, bariatric ambulances, extra large coffins..... These are all sad sights. Should we adapt to suit fatter people as routinely as that? Seems a slippery slope to me

"I hope the OP isn't too upset by the comments on this thread when she comes back"

Light blue touch paper and retire....

Flight prices are very cheap nowadays because consumers would rather pay the absolute minimum and sacrifice space (hence the rise in budget airlines and demise in some of the more premium ones).

If a person can't fit into the budget seat (or premium one) then they should pay for two seats. Why should all consumers pay higher airfares if airlines made seats bigger, just so that larger people can fit? If I can fit into a small seat I'd like to pay a small price.

I don't think we should expect airlines to make bigger seats either. They are a business and they aren't going to be inclined to lose money to make the minority of passengers more comfortable, so the natural consequence of bigger seats would be higher prices.

I don't think it would be at all fair to charge everyone more to accommodate people who are severely overweight. The onus has to be on the person who doesn't fit into a standard space to pay extra, as it already is (unfairly) for people who are especially tall.

Not really. I didn't want to start name calling & accusing any particular poster of being nasty, however it's perfectly obvious that some have been. It did rather turn into a fight for a while, presumably while the OP was asleep, don't you think. I know how I'd feel about that, even if the comments weren't directed at me. And as someone upthread has already pointed out, OP is clearly sensitive about her size, however clumsily she may have phrased her initial post. Not everyone with weight problems is entirely to blame, disability & illness can contribute.

I think this issue kicks off because overeating is normally a vice that only affects the person doing it. Unlike smoking, where it's equally distructive to your personal health, for years we've felt it acceptable to make negative comments about smokers and limit their options because their smoke affects the rest of us. However, public transport is really the only time that someone else's decision to overeat affects you - by incroaching on your space. Unlike smoking, or drinking, if you overeat, the negative concequences to other members of the public can't be stopped by just not doing it at that moment, if you are fat, you are fat all the time, if you are a smoker, you can just not smoke for a few hours.

OP, the people you sit next to huffing and puffing aren't fat-haters or fat-phobics, they are people who are suffering negative concequences of your lifestyle choices - that is, you physically taking their allotted space on a plane. Your choice to overeat (which may have emotional reasons for it, and not be entirely in your control) means they have the quality of their plane journey lowered, it's not their choices that have lead to them suffering a lower quality experience, they will have paid just the same as if they'd been sat next to someone who was size 6.

Often, it's the point your choice affects someone else that everyone else feels they have a right to comment negatively on your choices.

In the same way people who want to keep smoking, while knowing how bad it is for their health tend to put in elaborate rules that make their lives harder in order to minimise the effect on other people (such as only smoking outside regardless of the weather, showering and cleaning teeth after each fag before touching their DCs, not smoking in cars - even if that means making regular smoking breaks making journeys longer etc), in the occassions that your size effects other people you should be the one to put in plans to limit the negative effects on others - so if that means between you and your DH you buy 3 rather than 2 seats os you can have a spare seat between you, or you fly premimum economy so there's extra room, or you make sure you're at the airport an hour before everyone else so you can get to check in first and get seats together - then you do that. It should be you and your DH that shoulder the negative concequences, not others.

i think we are all being a bit willfully obtuse is often an issue on here,

as mostly mentally competent human being we fine well know the type of person being referred to here.

There's a world of difference between someone uncomfortable on a plain but still remaining polite and someone who is just obnoxious and will spend every possible opportunity sighing and making the larger person feel horrible,

although booking seats is a good idea.

If I was sat next to someone large on a flight, I would rather suffer the mild discomfort/encroachment on my space than make someone feel embarrassed/ashamed.