uncomfirtable journey

[planejourney]

Interested in people's opinions.
I had a recent journey from hell when an obese/morbidly obese person sat next to me on a flight for 6 hours.
He and his partner both booked aisle seats next to each other and both were morbidly obese. I was in a middle seat and another passenger in the window seat.
He struggled to get into the seat and had to rearrange himself and move bits around in order to get the armrest down. Once in place, the armrest disappeared. He basically overflowed into my seat and had to cross his arms for me to have any room. His right leg was in my space and his left leg was in the aisle. He was unable to get the table down in front of him.
Unfortunately I had to spend the full journey with body contact with this person. This not only invaded my personal space but was also really hot! It was a night flight and the flight was full, so I didn't want to disturb people sleeping by asking if a swap/move was possible. This person proceded to fall asleep and snore very loudly to a point where people were turning around. The trolley or people could not get past his leg in the aisle so he had to keep moving it. To make matters worse, the person in front reclined their seat right back. I felt trapped!
I had a few looks of pity and the staff could clearly see how uncomfortable it was.
AIBU to think he should have bought a second seat? Airlines should make it clear and consider the comfort and safety of all passengers. I paid for a seat and got half a one. Did this person lack consideration for others?

You think the chap seated next to the obese person spilling over on to his seat was “unreasonable” and “immature” for swapping with his smaller wife

This OP just got decidedly… weird

no, again you haven't read my reply properly

I’d say having his head in his hands and being near to tears is a trauma reaction, not rudeness or immaturity. And if he displayed hatred towards the person causing him to feel that level of upset then he has a very good reason, and that person had absolutely no right to force contact with his body and crush him into his seat.

She’s been pretty rude about anyone who would have taken any action. It’s been weird the whole time.

Having his head in his hands and looking away from the cheeky sod who booked an aisle seat apart from her partner, knowing that she’d be spilling over her neighbour’s - you think is immature and unreasonable?

Fact is… he has no doubt forgotten about it now

whereas you’ve dedicated your weekend to to discussing how disgusted and horrified you were

So you’ve gone from asking ‘Maybe I should have been more like them?’ to saying he displayed ‘disgust and hate’? Ok 🙄. Drip feed much.

No one has to ‘move along’, you don’t own the forum.

Do I think you were reasonable to be seriously pissed off by this inconsiderate and selfish passenger… hell no

Do I think you are being thoroughly odd about the passenger swapping with his wife and not concealing fact that he was bloody annoyed… hell yes

Yes this OP has done a sharp swerve and I’ve done from very sympathetic to now… WTF are you going on about?! 😆

I think we should move along

The OP has “turned”

Just want to thank all for opinions etc concensus being im not unreasonable in my thoughts and feelings around my experience of an unpleasant jouney. A lot of empathy and support shown on this thread, thank you. Like I said, its an interesting debate and some ideas have come about regarding solutions and ive learnt a few things along the way...

As an aside given the amount of flying many people do these days it is kind of worrying you had to give that comprehensive explanation.

I think at some airlines those overwing rows have become all about the extra legroom and not much else...

@planejourney

There was another poster on this thread who also burst into tears when she approached her seat on the plane and saw that half of it was taken up by her neighbour. She burst into tears because she just couldn’t handle another thing happening to her outside of her control.

Being stuck in a flying metal tube and having your own space taken up by someone with whom you have to make bodily contact is actually trauma inducing for some people. You don’t know their lives, you don’t know what’s happened to them, you don’t know how stressful their day or week has been. The response of crying or covering your face or even recoiling away is not immature. Not at all.

Standing up and screaming and shouting and swearing would be. Insulting them to their face would be. But a physical reaction from your own body, to cover your face or be near tears or recoil away is not immature.

The only rude and immature people in your story are you and the obese couple.

Definitely

and also pretty much the overwhelming view that you’re being bloody unfair about the chap who chose to move

At least he didn’t get stuck I was once stuck on an arrival where a lady similar to this had swollen up during the flight and could get out from the armrest as was stuck and engineering and then the airport fire bridge had to attended to remove parts of the seats to get her out!!

I really feel for you it sounds like an impossible situation. With no spare seats the only way for it to be resolved would have been to ask him to leave the flight, but if he'd had luggage in the hold that would have had to be removed and flight would have been delayed.
The thing is with online check in and self serve baggage drop off there is limited staff interaction until you get to the gate.
It was completely unfair on you and I would complain to the airline, as pointed out it is a safety concern.
If I was as large as this man I'd have booked two seats/a row with my wife to avoid this situation.
Airlines they are always very hot on oversize baggage so I guess they could have an airline seat to check passengers fitted before boarding,like at theme park rides, this would soon make people book an extra seat.
But I do think budget airlines are very tight the seats are getting smaller with less legroom.

A Simon Calder piece on this subject from earlier this year:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/plus-size-passenger-airline-flights-seats-cost-b2696024.html

Interesting article @notimagain.

I wonder what would happen if a passenger voluntarily deboarded if faced with a long haul flight next to someone who really did need two seats and there weren't any spare seats to move to? No-one could spend 8+hrs in a jump seat.

Would the airline put them on the next available flight or would they be responsible for the new flight expense having made the choice to get off? Although I guess deboarding isn't a realistic option for most travellers though.

But the airlines should accommodate morbidly obese people and not charge them a fortune

That's nice in the ideal world but airline financial margins are tight and the vast majority of the paying public want the cheapest fares possible, so how do you do that

As you said yourself, @notimagain, simply charge extra equivalent to what the airline have lost in revenue had the seats been normal size

The difficulty of course is that, maybe not wanting to pay more, such folk will just go on booking seats they don't fit, and not knowing them from Adam the airline will have no idea there's a potential problem until they turn up at the desk

Which is where a discreetly placed "try it before you board" seat comes in, so the passenger can be offered larger seats if available and refused boarding if not

Was that a flight from Rome in October 2023 by any chance?

It happened to me too, and TBH I thought the "stuck passenger" was one of those silly stories which folk pass round and embroider as it goes

Right up until the engineers arrived and the passenger was hoisted off ...

I honestly don't know what the legal situation or airlines obligation would be if the smaller passenger decided on offloading themselves...

Jumpseat rules vary from airline to airline..Where I was we weren't allowed to put commercial passengers on jumpseats but for info I've seen staff travellers parked on jumpseats all the way from Singapore to the UK...something like 14 hours...

YANBU- and I say this as someone who has been morbidly obese (but wouldn't have got on a flight at that weight anyway). It's selfish and inconsiderate, and it should be down to the airlines to bring rules in for this, however I'm not sure how this would work. If you set a weight limit, you'd have all sorts of issues with it; for example you'd have body builders that are very muscly yet lean who may exceed the limit, but wouldn't impinge on your space, people with medical conditions such as prader willi syndrome who constantly feel hungry and are extremely prone to weight gain, the list goes on- you couldn't make these people pay for an extra seat. I don't know the answer, but it certainly isn't fair on people like you who were trapped in and squashed for the whole flight.

Ha that article - when ever did a 17 inch seat mean up to 53 inch waist? That’s a UK size 30-32, for FEMALES. I suspect this is a measurement for MEN, who tend to have much smaller hips and butts. A 17 inch seat can (supposedly) accommodate a 52 inch HIP, not waist, though I’d say not at all comfortably. A 52 inch hipped person has a 42-45 inch waist (on average, obviously there’s a variation in body type).
This is a size 24ish. Large yes.
But even a size 12 person may find the seats cramped, and if you have long legs (I’m almost 6’), ouch. I can just about survive an EasyJet to Spain, but long haul I go Premium Economy to get that extra couple inches in width and several inches in pitch.
The recourse for people who are uncomfortable in economy seats is to upgrade or get an extra seat, though straddling two seats is hardly comfortable. I thought if a passenger couldn’t put the armrest down or fit in the seat and there’s no room available to have two seats, they could be denied boarding.
I think to make everyone’s journey more comfortable is to increase seat width AND pitch. Of course this means less seats and less money. But I’m paying the same price for a Christmas trip to the US this year as I did six years ago - maybe time for prices to go up.

I guess due to this thread I’m getting this coming up🤣 :

www.thesegoldwings.com/southwest-plus-sized-passengers/?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwMYfpJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHvUejx1HHovXdj-a97A1E2rzMZNW596W55fXqTDyBfBRd-Fb5McURJgmLovx_aem_zL0Pz-HsdQScCsbx70LIMA

Anyone else bothered by the typo in the thread title, or just me?! 😆

Not just you. I’m considering removing it from my watched threads for two reasons: the typo, and the anxiety it’s causing me about an up-coming 10 hour flight. 🤣