Posted on 06/24/2002 12:49:44 AM PDT by kattracks
Just about everyone gets a turn at discrimination-induced outrage in Ornery America. This week it's "people of size" -otherwise known as fat people -who take up too much space on airplanes. Beginning June 26, Southwest Airlines plans to start charging double for people whose girth consumes more than one seat. Fat people are furious; civil liberties lawyers are drooling; skinny people are skipping lunch.
This is one of those cases where everybody's right and everybody's wrong all at the same time. Fat people are right that the airline's policy is discriminatory; civil liberties defenders are probably right that making fat people pay extra just because they're fat violates the spirit of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
And airlines are certainly right that they ought to be able to charge more for people who consume more space. If you order two meals, you pay for two meals no matter how hungry you are.
Likewise, though space is a less tangible commodity than food, it is no less a "product" if you happen to be in the airline business. Airlines sell space. If you need more than one space to accommodate your generous person, then you have to pay for it.
All logical, reasonable and, in a free market, fair.
But -and this is a big but, so to speak -the problem isn't just fat people, who account for a majority of Americans depending on whose body mass index you use. Under new federal standards, as many as 65 percent of Americans are "obese."
The problem is AIRLINE SEATS ARE TOO DADGUM SMALL!! Is that clear?
They're too small for anyone who ties his own shoelaces. They're too small for relatively petite people like me. Even seated in an aisle seat, which I always lobby for, I am miserable in coach class and never travel without a Valium just in case the coffin walls start closing in. I can't imagine what a three-hour flight must be like for someone who happens to carry an extra 20 to 30 pounds (not exactly obese) or who stands 6 feet tall.
On a recent flight, the two men in my row were both 6 feet 5 inches. They had to prop their chins on their knees and sip their tranquilizer through a straw. If fat people have to pay more for taking up extra space, should tall or large-but-not-fat people have to pay less because the airline industry refuses to acknowledge that human beings do not come in single, compact sizes?
Leg room is an oxymoron. There isn't any. As for seats, most in coach class measure 17 inches wide, give or take a fraction. (You can compare airline seat widths and pitches, airline jargon for leg room, at http://businesstravel.about.com/cs/airlineseatmaps/)
To put that into perspective, my office chair seat is 19 inches wide with a 22-inch spread between the armrests. I enjoy about four inches of wiggle room, which means that a 17-inch seat gives me exactly two inches of wiggle room. People who are normal to heavy, or just larger than my 5'6'' frame, have exactly zero wiggle room.
And the airlines say fat people are whining? Please. Fat people are fat. They're not evil; they're not intentionally overweight; they're not criminals. The airlines, on the other hand, are sadistic punishers who treat their clients like pre-burger material en route to the slaughterhouse and they deserve to be punished for it.
The answer isn't to tax people for being fat, but to accommodate the market, which is large and growing. I'm not a defender of obesity, but I am a defender of sanity, and the airlines fail the test.
Market logic may support making large people pay more for using more "product," but the same logic dictates that airlines should treat their clients with respect and consideration. I say, Fat And Skinny UNITE (FASU) and stop flying until the airlines give us bigger seats.
It's the least they can do for customers who, for the privilege of being miserable, endure long lines, subject themselves to body searches, and pretend not to notice the radical Islamist-looking dude who just breezed through security while Random Granny had her walker disassembled for closer inspection.
See you on I-95.
Contact Kathleen Parker | Read her biography
©2002 Tribune Media Services
At 6-0 and 200#, I have never felt like a sardine in a can like the article portrays that I should.
Could this be one of the reasons Americans have come to prefer their own vehicles for transportaion and rent movies to view from the comfort of their own chairs? Don't take me out to the ball game, for I don't fit where I sit . . .
Driving BUMP
Like I needed another reason not to fly, honk if you love Jesus!
Not sure about that, but believe it or not, the airlines will NOT give flying credit for the second seat purchased...now THAT's outrageous.
At first, I was sympathetic to Southwest Airlines for their decision. But when I found this out, I became less so.....
Actually, yes you do.
How does the author of the piece know they are not intentionally fat? Does he or she have some sort of mind reading device that can snoop into the thoughts of every obese person in the US?
The airlines, on the other hand, are sadistic punishers who treat their clients like pre-burger material en route to the slaughterhouse and they deserve to be punished for it.
Saith the cow who willingly stands in line to get into the "slaughterhouse". Don't like flying? Rent a car.
Let's see, in a free market, an airline could accomodate big fliers by offering bigger seats. They would have to charge more, of course, because they could sell fewer seats per plane.
People of average size would not pay the higher prices on WLA (Wide Load Airlines) because they do not need to. WLA goes bankrupt, end of experiment.
But since I am, through no fault of my own, overendowed in the inseam department, maybe that should entitle me to a free first class upgrade.
Would you really want two?
Don't know if you do or not, but you should.
Also, you should get double the baggage allowance and certainly flying credit for two tickets.
Personally, I think that that the "double" approach is just a bureaucratic "minimum thought" solution. Since the aircraft I fly in most often has three across seating, substituting some rows with 2 seats would provide a solution for every problem except the real exception.
Of course I believe that the baggage allowance and flying credits should also increase proportionately.
The amount of peanuts too.
Incidentally, not just fat folk are presumptuous. I have been asked to give up my window seat by morons who think that they are entitled to waltz on an airplane at the last minute and still pick their seat.
Any person of size who attempted to put down an arm rest next to mine would get a polite but firm "please don't do that".
I was always a skinny little kid. When I was 19 I weighed 155 lbs. I'm 46 now and my weigh got up to 208, mostly because of the fruit of the golden hop and the barley malt. But I took charge of that, and got my weight back to 175. Fat people, a lot of them, -don't- have to be fat.
It's just a matter of what is important to you.
Walt
Children, children, damn it, I knew there was something that needed my attention and neglected to complete, do you believe this, I forgot to have children, some days I would forget my head if it wasn’t attached.
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