The question isn’t really should the airlines be allowed to take their money. The question is how much of the neighboring seats should somebody occupy before the airline MUST declare the person a two ticket passenger and give them more than one seat.
And when a person is that big, it’s the fault of the person. Of course our current victim mentality prevents us from declaring this guy is just plane fat and needs to pay for the additional space he’ll take.
This is the only point on which I disagree. It is nobody's business how that person came to be so large in the first place. That is that person's personal business.
Genetics is a tremendous factor in the second place and it has nothing to do with a victim mentality. It is based in large part on what you inherit from *all* of your ancestors, in part on how much you eat, of course, and other factors these days such as certain medicines that cause weight gain and difficulty in losing it. Again, that's not a victim mentality it is just real life which is far from perfect especially where human beings are concerned.
If airlines need to charge based on weight and bulk then they should do so. But to "hate" the large person into not flying or otherwise participating in the public square is just wrong in my book.