[Western Patriot]

/rant

I fly all the time and let me tell you it can be hell sitting next to "A person of size". The first class seats are a lot bigger. They should have a policy where you either buy a first class ticket or two seats in economy.

/end rant

[wrench]

The "standard" FAA passenger weight is 170 pounds. The seats are designed to support this payload up to 2.5 g's. There is little,if any, reserve strength in the seats.

Transport catagory aircraft are designed to operate at gross weight with a plus or minus 1.75 g loading (been a long time, but I think that is right, around 2 g's or so)

A 350 pound (or larger) passenger will damage a typical airline seat in a hard landing or during an encounter with severe turbulence. If the turbulence is bad enough, the seat can totally fail and injure a passenger seated in the row behind .

I have repaired many seats damaged by "plus" sized passengers. The airlines have every right to charge extra for such passengers, it costs more to haul their butts around the sky.

[Brian Allen]

Mongrel bastard, Peter-Principled, bureaucrat-beancounter, bottom-line-looker airline companies wouldn't ever think to put seats in the damned airplanes that folks can fit into and be a little comfortable.

Bring back the Aviation Enthusiasts who ran the airlines in the Good Old Days! I'm pretty average sized but simply will not fly unless I'm in First or Business/First.

NEVER!

[Jhoffa_]

Hey fatso, stop dribbling over the handrail!

(And quit glaring at my crackers like that..))

[Lorianne]

All for it. Its just plain not fair to average size persons to have less than their full seat.

That said, I think the airlines should provide seats of larger size in coach. That way larger people could be accomodated in one the larger seats OR pay for 2 seats. If there were no "people of size" on the flight (fat chance) then a few lucky coach passengers will get a little extra room.

BTW isn't it odd that as Americans get larger and larger, airline seats get smaller and smaller?

[the]

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

I've been stuck next to double-wides like this more times than I care to recall.

Once there was precisely one unoccupied seat on the entire plane, and it was right next to me. The staff was about to close the door for departure, and I was feeling pretty smug with my luck, when whoops: up comes the sound of running footsteps, and onto the plane heaves... the 400 Pound Man.

I spent the next several hours pressed against the fuselage by the force of his sweaty thighs that draped over the armrests like an avalanche of moist sweaty gasping flabby flesh. I don't see how his butt was even touching the seat. And the exertion of making it onto the plane at the last microsecond sent him into a half-hour paroxysm of coughing and choking. Each wave of pertussis was like being steamrollered by warm yeast dough.

Though it was only a couple hours, it was one of the longer flights I've suffered.

[SamAdams76]

I'm pretty big myself, 6'3" and 260 but at least I can fit into an airplane seat or ballbark seat without hassling the person next to me. But there isn't much margin for error which is why I especially hate it when I have to sit next to another fat person. But I'd take sitting between two fat people anyday than to sit next to a mother with a screaming or fussing kid. If they are going to charge fat people double, they ought to charge the parents of fussy children triple!.

[ladyinred]

Ah yes, but we mustn't profile people from the middle east because that would be discrimination.

[Cloud William]

Wow... I finally get to post THIS:

*****************************

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"

[Attillathehon]

It's a judgment call, says airlines spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger.

Actually, it shouldn't be subjective. What we need are little yard sticks painted on the wall and a sign saying "You must be this thin" to pay a single fare. LOL

I hope the "people of size" sue the airlines for discrimination and demand wider seats to accomodate their bulk. It's humiliating to have to squeeze into those little narrow spaces because the airlines want to crowd as many people as they can on each flight. Heck, if they win, everyone wins!

[RWG]

About time fat people carry their weight.

[tracer]

btt

[mamelukesabre]

What good is it to make the big people buy two seats? What are they gonna do? Sit on the crack between two seats? THey should just ban all big people from the economy class. Make them fly first class or not at all.