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."
They have something like that at Six Flags - one of the ride seats mounted outside the ride so you can see if you'll fit before you go.
That's a new one for me, but I'll tell you - I'm getting awfully tired of elbow-wrestling over the armrest with some fool who's convinced that he's sitting in front of the tube in his La-Z-Boy at home. The last jack*ss I had that happen with waited until I reached for my drink from the stewardess and practically glued his elbow in place. And then he took his shoes off. That SOB.
The point is, the airlines are trying to maximize profit. Period. Telling people they're too fat for one seat is effective IF people do not use that as a reason to shun your airline in the future. Therefore, it may make more sense to choose the more tactful, quantifiable route I described, or not implement it at all. Sometimes, enforcing a rule that gets you more money in theory, backfires because it drives away the customers.
Those airline seats are made for marvin milktoast.
But if you charge by the pound Democrats will pay more - they're denser than regular people.
Now, will they serve him two meals? "I'm eating for two."
No, I think it's more like a slot limit where you can take a certain size,but not bigger or smaller. But with airlines there is a money factor also. Babies under a certain age fly free, 'normal' (per averages that the seats were built for) size pays regular price, porkers 'super sized' flyers pay a premium.
;-)
Doesn't that make the armrest pop up?
-PJ
Worse yet is when that double-wide removes, or persuades you to remove, the chair arm that separates your seats - then that behemoth really spills over into your space. It's not a matter of claustrophobia, I'm getting crushed by their spill-over.
you'd think if they could afford that extra food, and the prices for extra-large clothes, that they could afford the price of the wider first class seating.
I assume you're just joking. The whole deal with equality is ridiculous in certain applications. Should we allow someone of Jerrold Nadler's size to be a jockey?
I have lost 70 pounds in the past 18 months. I don't have a point, just boasting. Man, it's been a tough eight months! I actually started this current weight loss effort when I was at 215 pounds, in mid-October. Now I'm 158, which is 70 pounds less than my all-time-high, which was right around the time Katherine Harris certified President Bush in mid-December of 2000.
But anyway, if it was a joke, it was funny. If it wasn't, then I apologize for any offense you may have taken.
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