Posted on 06/17/2002 5:13:16 PM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
As a professional services executive for a software company, Steve McAllister travels a lot. The resident of the California foothills figures he's accumulated a couple million frequent flier miles and flown on Southwest Airlines at least 100 times.
But he never before experienced what happened a week ago. And he was hopping mad.
While buying a ticket for a Southwest flight from Sacramento to Burbank, Calif., he was told he'd need to buy an extra ticket.
The reason? He's what the airline calls "a person of size" - the PC term, evidently, for someone so large he may need more than one seat.
McAllister is, in fact, a big man - 6 feet 2 inches, 350 pounds. But the former college football player says he's never been accused of taking up more than a single seat on a flight.
"To be honest, I was really outraged," McAllister says of the request for double payment. Eventually, after some heated words, he was allowed to get a single ticket but only because the Southwest people were a little premature in enforcing a new policy.
As of June 26, large customers will have to pay the extra fare - but can seek reimbursement if it turns out the flight has unoccupied seats. In the past, ticket agents had the option of charging big people for an extra seat when a flight was fully booked. But they apparently didn't do it very often.
So how do the agents determine if a customer is likely to exceed his allotted space? It's a judgment call, says airlines spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger.
It is, she acknowledges, "a very delicate situation."
It does happen.
Yes, I saw that story on TV the other day.
What a joke.
I guess the next logical step is for hideous scanks to win the right to be super models and force top agencies to hire them.
This is PC insanity.
You have paid a price to go from point A to point B. The airline industry has determined that to that that, they need to seat you "safely." That's why there are seats in the plane.
You may have agreed to pay $200 to reach your destination, but the person next to you may be paying $350, because s/he didn't buy a ticket until this morning. Does that mean s/he should be able to lean over into your "space," because you didn't pay as much for your ticket?
Of course not. You agreed to pay $200 to get where you want to go, s/he agreed to pay $350. You both got what you wanted. So what's the problem?
If the other person hangs over into your space, ask him/her to move over. If s/he can't, then ask the FA to move one of you.
If that isn't possible, try suing the airline. First, try to figure out what your claim is. Answer: You don't have a legal claim. So live with it.
The truth is that the airlines have reduced the size and spacing of their seats over the years to squeeze more passengers on board. At the same time, the population is getting larger in size. An enterprising airline will use these facts to their advantage, if they can figure the financials and the marketing cleverly enough.
Are you Tom Daschle?
:^)
Just kidding, of course. My opinion on the whole airline seating situation is that the seats are too narrow (and I'm not all that big, 6-2 and 210#) and leg room is so cramped that my legs or feet often went numb when I flew, even on short flights. I swear, they design the seats for people 5'5" tall and 120 pounds.
In the least, I would think that they ought to divide the plane into sections based on the size of the flyers. You know, like small, medium, and large. OK, just an idea.
It's not really my premise, it's an assumption I made about the airline's possible argument. As I said, you either treat people as people, equals, or as cargo, by weight or space taken up. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know what the fine print says. But I'm just saying that an airline might attempt to use the 'space per passenger' rule as justification for their new policy.
One solution is to have a set of seats that are wider, but are ONLY to be used by those who NEED them. Otherwise, if some skinny guy gets to sit there he won't be resented by the rest of the cattle in coach. Airlines have the number-crunchers, they can figure out a min/max number of such seats on the plane.
It is not a cut-and-dry issue, I agree. If an overweight person doesn't infringe on my space, nor get any extra for free (that he doesn't NEED), I'm fine. But if you give someone who takes up SLIGHTLY more than one seat, a free seat, you are also giving him the FULL use of that seat for free, which is just plain unfair. It means he can put his possessions on it, stow things under it, etc. A solution to this would be to allow a middle seat as 'fair use' by the passenger on either side of that seat. The overweight person would use it for his extra girth, but the 'normal' weight person could put headphones, a pillow, a book, or whatever on the same seat. For free. Of course, this is a luck-of-the-draw thing, so other passengers won't all have an empty seat next to them, but that's just one of the facts of life.
Man, I never thought I had so much to say on a topic I've barely even thought of before!
But the comfort issue, if not addressed by the industry will surely be addressed some day by dot-gov. Whether we like it or not.
*****************************
HAIL TO THEE, FAT PERSON!
by Allan Sherman
[Recitation with the tune of "America The Beautiful" in the background]
I would like to explain how it came to pass that I got fat.
Ladies and gentlemen, I got fat as a public service. When I was a child,
my mother said to me, "Clean the plate, because children are starving
in Europe." And I might point out that that was years before the Marshall
Plan was ever heard of. So I would clean the plate, four, five, six times
a day, because somehow I felt that that would keep the children from
starving in Europe. But I was wrong. They kept starving. And I got fat.
So I would like to say to every one of you who is either skinny or in some
other way normal - when you walk out on the street, and you see a fat
person, do not scoff at that fat person. Oh no! Take off your hat. Hold
it over your heart. Lift your chin up high. And in a proud, happy voice
say to him:
"Hail to thee, fat person! You kept us out of war!"
____________________________
Copyright ca. 1963 by Curtain Call Productions, Inc.
Recorded by Allan Sherman on the LP "My Son the Nut"
So, the premise, which is not yours, that we are paying for a certain amount of room, falls flat on so many counts that logically the people on this thread who are beating up on all these fat people need to take a chill.
It might make non-fat people uncomfortable, but it doesn't create a legal claim. Mark my words: the fat people will win this one. Maybe the airlines will compromise with some variation of your wider-seats suggestion, but the fat people will win.
I don't think that the "majority" of people in this country are overweight, although there are many obese people in the U.S., and I don't support making fun of obese people but they have to realize that until they lose weight, they will have to buy two seats when flying or go first class.
The fact is that most obese people are not that way because of genetics but because they would rather have a Big Mac than get on the treadmill.
***Before I get attacked, please note that I said "most" and not "all" obese people.
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