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?

It's horrible. I think they should do rows with 2 larger seats instead of 3 thin ones and charge the people who want the wider seats 50% more. People would pay it as well. My partner is very tall and pays extra to sit in a seat with extra leg room so why can't people who require extra wide seats pay more?

Because people who are too fat to fit in their own seats won't pay extra and prefer to invade other people's space instead. They're freeloaders.

People were smaller 75 years ago (as you picked that length of time)

How do you not know this?

I was on a 14 hour flight. The lady next to me was enormous. I made a point of sitting right up to the edge of my seat on her side she complained that she was uncomfortable…I paid for a full seat.. if you want half of my seat, pay for it!!!

Yes but you could say that about most things. The wider seats in economy would cost 1.5 rate of a regular economy seat. So where is the airline losing out. That's one less meal and luggage allowance per row with the same amount incoming

And less seats mean less FA required

Im also wondering, based on people's descriptions of how they're scrunched up and cant sit properly, and Ive seen this as well, if someone sustained pain or injury from being in such a strange position for a long time whether there would be any come back on the company?

I remember (which isnt similar but sort of is) a case from many years ago about a woman who had gone to the hairdresser and as usual had been asked to sit back at the basin, tipped her head back but it had pressed on some sort of nerve or tendon or whatever (not really remembering the full details here) and later she found she had been really injured from it, perhaps she was paralysed from it, not sure if Ive got that wrong. That then apparently changed the law in terms of how hairdresser basins are set, the height and angle or something.

So if you were sitting for 10 hours in pain, arm scrunched round you, leaning to one side and caught a nerve or tendon and sustained long term problems from it I wonder if you would have come back to say that you have been injured by the situation?

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

@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).

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

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

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

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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"