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This isn't anything new. Passengers have been complaining about seating and services on flights for years. The dirty secret is that when it comes to travel there's not a lot of options out there and the airlines know this. That's at least part of the reason Delta is fighting this suit.

I don't think that's why they're fighting it. Very frequently big companies settle out of court because even if they win the case it's bad PR to beat up "the little guy". But if they fight this and lose they then have a legal precedent, at that juncture they really have no choice but to charge people that are wider than one seat for the extra seat because they would no longer be legally allowed to sell that seat to someone else. Time this with the comlaints last month from "large" people about the airlines charging them double and you see why OPH suspects collusion (ie this guy isn't the Joe average Citizen you think but someone picked by the airline to sue them); and why both of us think they'll throw the case (you don't actually have to try to win a case, you can get up in court and say "the plaintiff is right, we suck", or something very similar). And as the airline numbers have shown post 9-11 there are a lot more alternatives than you think, and people are finding them.