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

[Kag13]

I have today spent a four and a half hour Jet2 flight seated next to a young man who was at least 20 stone, probably larger. I could not use the left hand armrest as his body (fat) buldged over it and into my personal space (which on a budget airline is not that large) and his leg was resting over part of my seat.
Luckily I am only 5’2” and not that big but what would happen if someone of the same size was seated next to him?
it made for a very uncomfortable flight for me. Am I being unreasonable to think this is not right?

How do you make someone buy 2 seats?

Put simply you can't, @intrepidpanda; all you can do is make the information available - as is already done - and if at check in it becomes clear they've done nothing and it isn't going to work a call will have to be made as to whether it's appropriate for them to board

How does someone who has not flown know they need 2 seats?

Same way they know anything else. It's constantly said that the obese know they're obese and don't need telling, so if they can use the internet to book a flight they can find out how wide seats are and choose accordingly

And you're quite right, @notimagain; suggest one solution and the "problem" instantly becomes something else which another person is supposed to sort out for them, and now apparently it should all be free as well

Someone upthread said that they had complained to the airline afterwards and received a sympathetic response. There’s definitely no simple answer to ensure everyone has a seat without having to have a stranger touch you all flight. And as many have said, equally uncomfortable for the person with obesity. There are no winners.

So I think some pressure on the airlines to come up with something as like it or not, obesity is much more common today than it ever was. And losing weight despite what many have flippantly said on this thread is as hard as it ever was. If it was easy then there’s no way so many people struggle (and take WLIs).

I wonder if airlines had to compensate those whose space was cut down unreasonably and thus not delivering what has been paid for, might do something. So the more complaints and references to them not supplying what has been purchased. Some pressure on them. I know they are a business but businesses mostly only keep going if they deliver quality. Airlines seem strangely immune from normal quality standards.

I still think some kind of discreet method to alert crew of discomfort would be good, and make whatever the system recordable. And cabin crew should be able to observe squashed in passengers and offer more space if there are spare seats elsewhere. Or just keep 1 row free - surely that wouldn’t dent profits too much, and would allow at least a bit of moving the most squashed in passengers or the largest.

So I think some pressure on the airlines to come up with something as like it or not, obesity is much more common today than it ever was.

The only pressures that will work are falling sales, or a ton of cash to be made out of an alternative, or the one we definitely don't want: some sort of safety disaster caused by a large passenger.

Or something from a definitive health and safety compliance perspective - no idea if there is one and presumably there is not otherwise surely it would already be in place. offshore workers going on helicopters cannot be over the weight that would allow them to be winched to safety in an emergency, so those over that weight had no choice but to comply if they want to keep working offshore.

Exactly, there's the weight and balance of the aircraft to consider...

So the idea is to pressurise crew into a move or even upgrade, or better still the airline should consider keeping a row or rows of seats free just in case.?

Jeepers, if I hadn't been sure before I certainly am now that not many posters are aware of the pressure crews are already under and have never looked at the reality of airline margins and balance sheets...

If it's financial pressure that works how about starting out by booking with airlines that offer bigger seats, or/or have "comfort seats".system, and or business class/premium economy in Long Haul...those exist, out there, right now.

Do that and airlines that can't offer similar might change their product.

Or is this really a case of "we want to carry on using the LoCo we claim we hate and also want them to facilitate all this for free?"...

Get over it, honestly.

There was a bit like this in a comedy show years ago, suggesting that rather than everyone buying a seat and paying for e.g. 25kg luggage we should all turn up to the airport with our bags and stand on a big scale and be charged for the total kg we add to the plane. Not the craziest of ideas!

Ha can you imagine!

Too unpopular with passengers, too discriminatory (taller and older people will overall weigh more than shorter and younger ones etc) and doesn't solve the issue of seat space, because mass isn't the same thing as weight. Some heavier people will fit in the seat fine while some people lighter than they are won't.

Honestly, if that were viable they'd have done it by now. Weighing people for light aircraft (where everyone still pays the same, they just balance the weight) is different isn't the same as standard commercial planes.

No exaggeration...

Fat people do spill into your seat and who the hell wants to touch someone's sweaty body pressed against theirs for hours? Grim.

Why should l get over someone squashed against me for almost 14 hours?

Think how uncomfortable he felt in the first place.

then consider how unfortunate he was to have to sit next to a judgemental and seemingly unpleasant person. One who then felt the need to run to mumsnet and try and fat shame him further.

I’m not sure what you being 5’2 has to do with anything either

I agree with you OP. I really resent paying for a seat to then be squashed in by the person in the seat next to me. I think they should have to buy an extra seat if they don’t fit into the standard seat and airlines should enforce this (and also, make it clear that if you haven’t bought a second seat, but should have done, you either pay at the airport if there’s space and if not, can’t fly. I imagine there are very few obese people who don’t know they are obese. Budget airlines are really quick to notice when hand luggage is too big and are happy to charge extra for this, this is similar.

similar situation, I recently went to a sports match and ended up sat between dh and another man who were both bigger, although neither obese (both over 6ft and broad shoulders/larger frame). It was a really uncomfortable 90 minutes! If I’d been a similar size, I’m not sure how I’d have sat down!

surely that wouldn’t dent profits too much, and would allow at least a bit of moving the most squashed in passengers or the largest.

I see this said about NMW, about business taxes, about shoplifting, fraudulent insurance claims, and on and on.

When are people who've never run a business in their lives going to realise that this isn't about denting the airline's profits a little bit, it's about every other passenger on every plane paying more for their tickets?

I don’t really have an answer to this but this is something that really annoys me. Thankfully we are a family of 3 so the majority of planes have 3 seats and we book in advance. But similar happens in theatres and arenas. Tickets for these things aren’t cheap and it’s annoys me when I can’t sit in my seat comfortably because someone is encroaching into my space. I’m not thin by any stretch of the imagination but I fit into a regular seat, if I didn’t I would be doing something about it.

Why should anyone have to get over it? It's absolutely vile. I have to fly again next week and am thinking about taking a hardboard clipboard to wedge between the seats, as long as the armrest stays down it might work!

They aren’t 3x2 they are 3x3. If that’s what you thought then maybe that explains the shrinkflation.

It's not judgemental not to want someone to sit crammed up to you visibly running sweat.

It's not judgemental to know that in a crash you're going to be last off the plane even if you deliberately bought seats near an emergency exit because the person beside you is literally wedged into their seat front to back and side to side.

Are you morbidly obese yourself, it would explain your very defensive/attacking posts on this issue? This is a question, not a judgement.

This

Over weight passengers are supposed to pay for 2 seats it should be mandatory and if they dont pay they dont get through boarding

I'm sorry @ObliviousCoalmine but I fully agree with @Kag13 : and (politely) I think you're the one being unreasonable here.

Airlines have made seats smaller and smaller to get more people in, people are getting bigger, for a multitude of reasons (very few people are bigger because they chose that option).

Very true (all 3 points).

You’re not going to get airlines making seats bigger,

Well why not? Seats not being big enough is a widespread complaint. If enough people complain to the airline about it seat size might just become a selling point and airlines might compete on that basis.

And in principle, airlines could provide a small number of wider seats for genuinely obese people to book (then of course we get into an argument about whether they should be more expensive or not - of course they should) Many people who are uncomfortable in a standard seat would be happy to pay extra to book a wider one (not just obese people, but a mother with a baby, perhaps), just as tall people will pay for extra legroom.

They don’t have to, actually.

In that case I want double the hand luggage allowance.

where is the cut off?

I actually think tickets should be x amount, and then you should be charged an additional amount for the weight you take onto the plane. So, massive scales where both the person and their luggage are weighed at the same time (so there's no way of anyone actually knowing YOUR weight), then the additional charge is added.

Not only would this be a much fairer way of doing things, as you would be directly paying for the amount of fuel YOU are using, but it would also undoubtedly encourage people to lose weight before they fly, which can only be a good thing for their health.

It's not an airline's job to police people's health and it's an unworkable idea for all the reasons I listed above plus the fact that pricing is incredibly complicated even as things are now, and this will not make it simpler.